LIBRARY 

OF    T^E 

UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA. 

t 

Class 


DRINKING-WATER   AND    ICE 
SUPPLIES 


AND     THEIR 


RELATIONS  TO  HEALTH  AND  DISEASE 


BY 


T.  MITCHELL    PRUDDEN,  M.D. 
\i 

AUTHOR   OF   UTH«  STORY    OF  THB    BACTHRIA,"  "  DUST  AND   ITS    DANGERS,"    BTC. 


SECOND  EDITION 


G.  P.  PUTNAM'S  SONS 

NEW  YORK  LONDON 

27  WEST  TWENTY-THIRD   8T.      24   BEDFORD   ST.,   STRAND 

£be  fitmhexbochtr  Press 
1901 


. 

C 


COPYRIGHT,    1891 
BY 

T.   MITCHELL  PRUDDEN,  M.D. 


Ube  Knickerbocker  prew,  «ew  »otfc 


P.REFACE. 

THIS  little  book  has  .been  written  with  the 
purpose  of  informing  the  householder  how 
wholesome  water  may  be  obtained  both  in  town 
and  country.  This  end  is  sought  not  by  laying 
down  a  series  of  axioms  and  rules,  but  rather 
by  calling  the  reader's  attention  to  some  more 
or  less  interesting  facts  about  water  and  water 
supplies,  in  the  hope  of  helping  him  on  these 
to  base  an  independent  judgment  applicable 
to  his  own  particular  case.  Some  of  the  new 
bacterial  lore  is  brought  into  prominence,  be- 
cause a  good  deal  of  the  current  distrust  of 
good  water  sources  arises  from  false  notions 
as  to  the  relationships  of  the  water-bacteria  to 
disease.  On  the  other  hand,  it  is  believed 
that  much  serious  illness  may  be  spared  by  a 
knowledge  of  such  facts  as  are  here  laid  down 
about  the  real  dangers  which  lurk  in  water 
made  impure  by  inattention  to  simple  sanitary 
laws. 

T.  M.  P. 
m 


9, 


591 


CONTENTS 


CHAPTER 

I. — PLANS  AND  PURPOSES i 

II. — GLIMPSES  OF  A  WORLD'S  WORKSHOP          ...        6 
III.— THE  EARTH'S  STOCK  OF  WATER       .        .        .        .12 

IV.— HIDDEN  WATER 16 

V. — KINDS  OF  WATER 31 

.VI. — A  STUDY  OF  THE  LIVING  EARTH       ....      38 
VII. — THE  LIVING  EARTH  (Continued)        ....      47 

.  VIII. — SOME  WATER  IMPURITIES 54 

.  IX. — THE  UNSEEN  WATER  FLORA 63 

.  X. — A  WATER  CENSUS 69 

XL— SOME  WAYS  OF  GETTING  WATER        ....      78 

XII.— SOME  LOOSE  ENDS  GATHERED  UP      .        .        .        .90 

XIII. — ARTIFICIAL  WATER  PURIFICATION      .        .        .        .    101 

XIV.— SOLID  WATER 116 

XV. — THE  INVISIBLE  ICE-FLORA         •        .        •        .        .127 

XVI. — ARTIFICIAL  ICE  .        . 134 

XVII.— THE  LAST  WORD  138 


ILLUSTRATIONS 


PAGE 

FIG.   I. — A  section  of  rock  and  soil — showing  "  ground  water  "  25 

FIG.  2. — An  artesian  well  .......  29 

FIG.  3. — A  driven  well 83 

FIG.  4.— Sketch  of  a  model  well 88 

FIG.   5. — A  contaminated  well  with   intermittent   supply   from 

the  ground  water    ........     94 

FIG.  6. — One  of  the  tributaries  to  the  Croton  stream,  showing 

sources  of  contamination  of  the  water  from  its  banks        .   107 


DRINKING-WATER  AND   ICE  SUPPLIES 


AND   THEIR 


RELATIONS  TO  HEALTH  AND  DISEASE. 


CHAPTER  I. 

PLANS   AND   PURPOSES. 

IT  is  neither  the  purpose  nor  the  hope  of 
the  writer  of  this  little  book  to  say  any 
thing  especially  new  or  any  thing  startling 
about  water.  Nor  does  he  plan  to  set  in 
array  the  many  varied  properties  which  make 
it  at  once  one  of  the  most  useful  and  beautiful 
and  indispensable  to  life,  of  all  the  forms  of 
created  things.  He  wishes  only  to  ask  his 
reader  to  consider  with  him,  in  the  light  of 
some  of  the  new  and  marvellous  discoveries  of 
modern  science,  sundry  relationships  which 
water  bears  to  civilized  life,  and  some  of  the 
ways  in  which  we  are  enabled  to  supply  our- 


2  DRINKING-WATER  AND  ICE   SUPPLIES. 

selves  with  it,  both  for  cleanliness  and  nourish- 
ment, in  pure  and  wholesome  form. 

There  is  a  legend  of  a  sprite  in  the  Thurin- 
gian  forest,  whom  the  people  suspected  of 
hostile  intent,  and  in  order  to  assure  them  of 
his  harmlessness  and  good  feeling,  he  was 
wont,  when  he  met  them,  to  take  off  his  skull 
and  show  them  that  it  was  hollow.  While 
deprecating  a  too  literal  analogy  between  the 
anatomical  characteristics  of  this  being  and 
himself,  the  writer  would  still  wish  as  clearly 
to  absolve  himself  from  the  charge  of  sheer 
wantonness  and  to  expose  his  intent  in  writing 
for  unscientific  people  a  book  which  contains, 
among  other  things,  a  few  very  disquieting 
revelations  about  some  people's  drinking- 
water. 

There  are  a  good  many  fancies  and  beliefs 
about  drinking-water,  which  are  founded  in 
ignorance,  perpetuated  by  indifference,  and 
culminate  in  serious  physical  disorders.  These 
the  writer  wishes  to  expose  and  combat. 

There  have  been  many  new  and  important 
revelations  within  the  past  few  years  about 
the  relations  of  good  water  to  good  health, 


DRINKING-WATER  AND  ICE   SUPPLIES.  3 

and  of  bad  water  to  varying  degrees  of  bad 
health.  These,  with  what  clearness  he  can 
master,  the  writer  purposes  to  set  forth. 

There  are  a  good  many  simple  suggestions 
which  from  our  new  vantage-ground  can  be 
made  to  the  householder,  both  in  town  and 
country,  as  to  what  good  water  is,  how  he  may 
secure  it  for  his  domestic  use,  and  how  he  may 
judge  of  the  probabilities  of  danger  in  a  sus- 
pected supply.  To  make  these  suggestions  is 
the  most  practical  purpose  of  this  little  book. 

Finally,  the  writer  would  call  the  attention 
of  those  who  object  to  being  reminded*  of  their 
accustomed  sanitary  misdeeds,  to  the  fact  that 
the  medical  science  of  to-day  is  raising  its 
standard  of  advance  with  this  conviction  that 
widespread  prevention,  when  it  is  possible,  is 
better  than  cure.  A  large  measure  of  pre- 
vention is  possible  in  many  serious  diseases, 
which  have  been  always  and  abundantly  with 
us,  because  we  have  not  known  until  now 
just  what  caused  them  and  how  to  curtail  their 
spread. 

If  anybody  thinks  life  is  not  worth  living 
because  he  is  advised  to  walk  ononeside  of 

e  * A* 

or  THC 


4          DRINKING-WATER  AND  ICE  SUPPLIES. 

a  street  to  avoid  falling  bricks  on  the  other, 
he  is  one,  it  may  be  frankly  said,  for  whom 
this  book  is  not  written.  It  is  for  those  who, 
taking  the  world  as  it  is,  are  concerned  to  make 
it  as  much  better  as  they  can  ;  for  those  who 
can  see,  without  elaborate  explanation,  that 
sanitary  savagery  does  not  well  accord  with 
that  cleanly  living  which  is  a  distinguishing 
mark  of  civilization  ;  for  those  who  are  not 
too  indolent  or  engaged  to  look  fairly  at  the 
reasons  which  have  given  rise  to  the  general 
demand,  so  frequent  to-day,  for  clean  food, 
clean  water,  clean  air,  clean  surroundings,  and 
the  physical  and  mental  vigor  which  these 
conditions  foster. 

The  various  departments  of  science  are  so 
closely  interlinked  that  achievements  in  each 
throw  light  upon  the  problems  of  the  others, 
often  in  very  unexpected  ways.  And  so  if 
the  reader  finds  that  now  and  then  we  have 
left  the  water-ways  and  are  wandering  inland  ; 
if  we  seem  to  lose  from  sight  for  a  moment 
the  evident  practical  ends  of  our  special  study, 
to  spy  out  some  secrets  of  the  solid  earth ;  if 
now  and  then  we  step  aside  for  a  little,  to 


DRINKING-WATER  AND  ICE   SUPPLIES.  5 

watch  curiously  the  student  in  his  laboratory, 
as  he  probes,  and  peers,  and  ponders,  we  should 
not  forget  that  so  only  can  we  fit  ourselves  to 
form  independent  judgments, — so  only  be 
masters  of  our  subiect.  and  not  mere  Grad- 
grinds  of  the  hoar. 


CHAPTER   II. 

GLIMPSES   OF  A  WORLD'S   WORKSHOP. 

A  STRONOMERS  and  physicists  tell  us 
2~\  that  the  material  which  forms  our  world 
was  once  poised  in  space  as  a  vast,  fiery,  cloud- 
like  mass  of  nebulous  vapor.  They  tell  us 
that,  little  by  little  as  the  ages  rolled  away, 
this  "  fire-mist,"  under  the  influence  of  well- 
known  physical  laws,  grew  denser  and  denser, 
until  it  was  largely  concentrated  into  the  solid 
groundwork  of  a  new  planet.  This  new  planet, 
red-hot  from  Nature's  workshop  in  space, 
slowly  cooled  upon  the  outside,  and,  after 
much  turmoil  and  with  titanic  throes  which 
tore  and  scarred  and  seamed  the  new-formed 
crust,  at  length  gave  up  for  the  most  part  its 
struggle  arid  strife,  and  entered  upon  an 
orderly  career,  as  a  staid,  solid,  reliable  world. 
There  seems,  however,  to  have  been  left 

6 


DRINKING-WATER  AND  ICE  SUPPLIES.  J 

over,  after  the  foundations  were  laid,  a  cer- 
tain amount  of  matter,  mostly  in  the  form  of 
gases  and  fluids,  which  has  assumed,  as  the 
world's  history  has  gone  on  developing,  a  most 
important,  if  not  a  dominant,  role. 

When  the  chemists  pull  this  residual  world- 
matter  to  pieces,  they  find  that  it  is  largely 
made  up  of  a  few  simple  elementary  sub- 
stances, which  they  call  carbon,  hydrogen, 
oxygen,  and  nitrogen, — partly  free,  but  mostly 
in  varying  combinations  with  one  another. 
One  of  the  most  abundant  and  widespread  of 
these  combinations  is  that  of  oxygen  and 
hydrogen  in  water — now  invisible  as  gas  or 
steam,  again  taking  form  in  clouds,  or  linger- 
ing most  willingly  as  the  fluid  which  we  know 
so  well,  or  growing  hard  and  cold  in  ice. 

Before  the  new  old  earth,  self-luminous  then, 
had  cooled,  the  water,  far  diffused  in  space  as  a 
gas,  was  invisible.  But  when  the  temperature 
had  sufficiently  fallen,  it  began  to  assume  the 
form  of  vapor — visible  as  condensing  steam 
or  clouds,  had  there  been  eyes  to  see  it. 
These  clouds  grew  denser  and  denser,  wholly 
veiling  the  sun,  no  doubt,  and  forming  a  lurid 


8          DRINKING-WATER  AND  ICE  SUPPLIES. 

canopy  over  the  but  partially  cooled  globe. 
It  will  be  remembered  that  at  this  time  there 
was  no  sea,  there  were  no  lakes,  no  streams — 
all  that  vast  quantity  of  water,  which  we  know 
so  well  to-day,  hung  poised  over  the  earth, 
still  too  hot  to  hold  it  for  an  instant  upon  its 
surface. 

Then  as  the  earth  still  further  cooled,  there 
came  an  age  of  rain  and  storms,  so  fierce  and 
wild,  that  we  can  form  no  adequate  concep- 
tion of  its  fury.  The  hot  earth  sent  back  the 
hissing  torrents  which  had  formed  above,  over 
and  over  and  over  again,  until  finally  a  boiling, 
shoreless  sea  had  gained  its  watery  foothold, 
and  then,  slowly,  but  at  last,  the  clouds  cleared 
away,  and  the  earth,  itself  no  longer  shining, 
beheld  its  sun — our  sun  to-day. 

With  what  further  writhings  and  struggles 
the  panting  earth  made  special  place  for  the 
waters  upon  its  surface,  and  the  dry,  cool  land 
— all  rock — appeared,  let  the  geologist  tell  us, 
if  he  will  or  can. 

At  any  rate,  the  ages  rolled  on,  and  at  some 
time  or  other,  when  or  how,  we  do  not  know, 
under  what  forces,  natural  or  Divine — which 


DRINKING-WATER  AND   ICE   SUPPLIES.  9 

is  perhaps  the  same  thing, — we  can  only  con- 
jecture, a  marvellous  influence  came  upon 
some  of  these  same  residual  elements  of  a 
world's  building,  and  fostered  in  them  a  po- 
tency which  we  call  life — a  potency  which  has 
remained,  self-renewing,  intangible,  and  as  mys- 
terious as  at  its  first  dawn  upon  the  new  earth. 

It  is,  after  all,  life  and  living  things  alone 
which  give,  for  us  at  any  rate,  special  signifi 
cance  to  this  great  sphere,  bowling  on  through 
space  so  monotonously  from  age  to  age.  And 
when  we  come  to  think  of  it,  it  is  only  just  a 
little  thin,  uneven  shell  outside  of  the  solid 
surface  of  the  earth — the  outer  layers  of  the 
soil  and  the  surface  waters — which  foster  and 
contain  the  consummation  of  our  world's 
powers  and  wild  experiences — living  things. 

Bound  up  so  closely  with  those  forms  of 
matter  in  which  life  finds  expression,  that  life 
cannot  be  conceived  of  as  active  without  it, 
and  making  up  so  large  a  part  of  living  things, 
that  it  dominates  all  their  other  elements, 
water  is  as  indispensable  to  life,  as  are  the 
forces  which  have  made  life  a  world's  chiefest 
adornment  and  its  master. 


10       DRINKING-WATER  AND  ICE  SUPPLIES. 

It  would  require  the  scientist's  knowledge, 
the  poet's  insight,  and  a  master's  pen  to  por- 
tray the  wonderful  changes  and  vicissitudes  of 
a  single*  drop  of  water,  as  in  its  own  form  it 
soars  in  the  clouds,  or  falls  in  rain,  or  yields 
itself  to  the  thirsty  earth  ;  to  trace  its  trans- 
mutation into  a  vital  factor  of  a  living  cell  in 
animal  or  plant ;  to  show,  how  wooed  by  the 
rootlet  in  the  soil  to  its  embrace,  with  what 
silent  but  resistless  force  its  atoms  are  torn 
asunder,  and  find  themselves  at  length  in 
new  combination,  swaying  in  the  sunshine  as 
a  part  of  petal,  leaf,  or  stem. 

And  so  it  would  seem  that  while  the  great 
mass  of  the  old  primitive  nebula  has  sunk  to 
rest  at  last  in  the  solid  rock,  or  has  become 
pent  up  still  uncooled  at  the  earth's  centre, 
that  poor  residuum  which  swept  over  the  cool- 
ing continents  as  water  with  such  resistless 
force  for  so  many  ages,  and  those  other  ele- 
ments which  were  called  by  a  more  exalted 
destiny  to  share  in  the  expression  of  life,  are 
still  ceaselessly  at  work  in  shaping  those  factors 
which  make  our  world  more  than  a  mere  mass 
of  inanimate  matter. 


DRINKING-WATER  AND  ICE  SUPPLIES.         II 

It  is  interesting  to  notice  that  those  elements 
which  we  have  called  residual  in  the  world's 
making,  the  water  as  well  as  the  other  ele- 
ments which  enter  into  the  structure  of  living 
things,  are  in  a  state  of  ceaseless  activity,  and 
are  being  used  over  and  over  again  in  forming 
and  maintaining  the  varied  kinds  of  life.  For 
a  period,  brief  as  the  waves'  poise,  they  are 
held  in  the  domain  of  life,  and  then  comes 
death  and  disintegration.  But  this  life-stuff  is 
precious  and  not  very  abundant,  and  so  again 
and  again  it  falls  under  the  spell  of  the  life 
forces  and  shares  anew  in  the  domination  of 
the  world.  In  truth,  that  rejected  elemental 
matter  from  a  world's  workshop  has  become 
the  corner-stone  to  that  fairer  structure  which 
we  may  call  the  living  earth. 

But  we  must  not  linger  longer  upon  these 
heights  ;  these  are  practical  times,  and  most 
people  want  something  more  definite  than  the 
vagaries  of  a  star-gazer,  who  is  soon  jostled 
out  of  the  way,  if  he  have  not  things  more 
practical  to  offer  than  far  horizons  and  inspir- 
ing points  of  view. 


f  CHAPTER  III. 

THE  EARTH'S  STOCK  OF  WATER. 

ALL  the  available  water  in  the  world — the 
water  which  is  not  being  temporarily 
made  use  of  by  living  things,  or  is  not  locked 
up  in  the  structure  of  the  rocks  or  in  other 
chemical  combinations — is  either  floating  in 
the  atmosphere,  or  flowing  or  lying  on  the 
earth's  surface,  or  hidden  more  or  less  deeply 
within  or  beneath  the  soil. 

In  primitive,  newly  settled  countries,  people 
get  water  for  their  personal  uses,  as  a  rule, 
wherever  they  happen  to  find  it,  in  lakes  and 
streams  or  springs,  and  the  presence  of  these 
water  sources  has,  as  everybody  knows,  been 
a  very  important  factor  in  determining  where 
communities  shall  settle  and  form  centres  of 
growth.  But  as  time  has  gone  on,  men  and 
communities  have  learned  in  a  measure  to 


DRINKING-WATER  AND  ICE  SUPPLIES.        13 

coerce  nature.  So  it  has  come  about  that  any- 
where and  everywhere  the  standard  of  resi- 
dence may  be  planted  at  the  dictates  of  every 
possible  motive,  and  in  one  way  or  another, 
for  better  or  worse,  water,  for  man's  personal 
uses,  is  made  to  be  forthcoming. 

How  much  water  on  an  average  an  individ- 
ual needs  in  civilized  life  for  personal  and 
domestic  uses  depends  a  good  deal,  of  course, 
upon  his  habits  and  occupations,  as  well  as 
upon  the  character  of  his  residence.  In  gen- 
eral, it  is  estimated  that  from  fifteen  to  twenty 
gallons  per  day  for  each  person  is  a  reasonable 
amount.  But  when  to  these  more  limited  uses 
of  water  we  add  the  amounts  needed  for  man- 
ufacturing purposes,  for  street  cleaning,  for 
extinguishing  fires,  for  fountains,  etc.,  a  much 
larger  quantity  will  be  required.  About  sixty 
gallons  per  day  per  person  has  been  regarded 
as  sufficient,  by  competent  authorities,  for  all 
these  various  purposes. 

In  many  towns  in  this  country  the  average 
supply  is  larger  than  this.  In  New  York,  for 
example,  it  is  estimated  that  we  have,  or  are 
soon  to  have  at  least,  as  much  as  one  hundred 


14        DRINKING-WATER  AND  ICE  SUPPLIES. 

gallons  per  head.  But  here  an  enormous 
amount  is  used  in  manufacturing  and  for 
motive  power,  and  an  enormous  amount  is 
most  wickedly  allowed  to  run  to  waste. 

When  we  try  to  group  the  varied  sources  of 
water  supply  for  domestic  and  general  use,  we 
find  that  they  may  be  conveniently  arranged 
as  follows :  First,  rain-water,  collected  in  cis- 
terns ;  second,  surface  waters,  such  as  streams, 
lakes,  and  ponds ;  third,  shallow  wells  of  the 
ordinary  form  and  the  common  springs  of 
superficial  origin ;  and  finally,  fourth,  water 
which  comes  from  a  considerable  depth  in  the 
earth,  as  from  very  deep  wells,  so-called  artesian 
wells,  and  deep  springs.  As  to  the  qualities 
and  peculiarities  of  water  from  these  varied 
sources,  those  we  will  consider  by  and  by. 

The  water  which  falls  in  rain  may,  when  it 
comes  down  upon  rocky  surfaces,  either  sink 
in  part  into  cracks  and  fissures  and  so  some- 
times goes  down  to  great  depths  in  the  earth, 
or  it  may  run  directly  off  into  streams  and 
ponds  and  lakes,  or  stay  in  puddles  until  it 
evaporates. 

Rain-water  and  such  surface  water  as  that 


DRINKING-WATER  AND  ICE  SUPPLIES.        15 

of  lakes  and  streams  we  need  not  stop  to 
consider  now,  but  in  order  to  understand  the 
water  which  comes  from  subterranean  regions 
and  forms  one  of  the  most  universal  sources 
of  supply,  we  must  make  a  little  side  study  of 
the  ground  in  which  such  waters  are  collected 
and  stored.  We  must,  in  other  words,  come 
back  again  briefly  to  the  Mother  Earth. 


CHAPTER  IV. 

HIDDEN   WATER. 

WE  were  prematurely  hurried  off  from 
our  glimpses  of  the  old  world  a- 
building  by  the  perhaps  only  fancied  necessity 
of  showing  some  of  our  friends  that  this  was 
not  after  all  a  treatise  on  elementary  geology. 
Having  thrown  a  sop  to  the  demon  of  the 
practical  by  this  glance  at  drinking-waters,  let 
us  slip  quietly  back  a  few  hundred  or  thousand 
millions  of  years,  more  or  less,  and  see  how  it 
fares  with  the  old  planet,  which  we  left  slowly 
cooling,  with  its  few  surface  wrinkles  jutting 
above  the  nearly  universal  sea,  as  low  storm- 
beaten,  wave-washed  mountains. 

In  those  days  great  tidal  waves,  of  several 
hundred  feet  in  height,  swept  round  and 
round  the  world.  No  wonder  that  the  first 
lands  which  peered  above  the  waters  were  torn 

16 


DRINKING-WATER  AND  ICE  SUPPLIES.         I/ 

and  eroded  and  ground  to  powder,  and  that 
great  deposits  of  rock  debris  were  laid  down 
beneath  the  water  to  become  baked  and  re- 
crystallized,  perhaps  over  and  over  again. 
The  sea  was  a  vast  caldron,  too,  in  which 
chemical  combinations  and  recombinations  be- 
tween one  element  and  another  of  the  old 
earth  matter  went  on  age  after  age,  forming 
great  beds  of  sedimentary  rock.  But  finally 
there  emerged  from  the  turmoil  some  conti- 
nents which  came  to  stay  and  formed  the 
backbone  of  our  finally  firm  earth  crust. 

We  do  not  need  to  linger  here  to  watch  the 
geologic  ages  as  they  pass,  each  bringing  the 
earth  nearer  to  its  present  condition.  It  only 
concerns  us  to  know  that  gradually  the  forma- 
tive changes  in  the  solid-rock  crust,  for  the 
most  part,  ceased,  and  that  piled  on  top  of  the 
uneven  rock  surface  of  the  earth — save  in  the 
comparatively  few  places  where  it  still  tastes 
the  sun — are  the  great  beds  of  rock-ruins, 
which  we  call  stones,  boulders,  pebbles,  gravel, 
sand,  clay,  loam,  soil. 

These  have  been  formed  out  of  the  old 
rocks  under  the  influence  of  alternating  heat 

2 


1 8        DRINKING-WATER  AND  ICE   SUPPLIES. 

and  cold,  of  water  and  ice,  and  various  chemi- 
cal recombinations.  We  usually  find  them  in 
layers  of  varying  thickness,  called  strata,  the 
size  of  the  rock  fragment  often  varying  in  the 
different  adjacent  layers.  Their  stratified  char- 
acter is  largely  due  to  the  fact  that  they  were 
formed  when  the  country  was  covered  with 
water. 

Go  into  the  garden  and  pick  up  a  handful 
of  dirt  or  sand,  and  look  at  the  particles  which 
make  it  up,  with  a  magnifying-glass,  and  you 
would  find,  could  you  but  read  their  stories, 
such  strange  experiences,  such  a  history  of 
rock  wreckage,  such  records  of  heat  and  cold, 
of  storm  and  lightning  and  pressure  and 
chemical  diablery,  as  would  make  your  head 
swim.  You  may  seem  almost  to  hear  the 
thunder  of  that  primeval  ocean,  as  it  rolled  in 
upon  the  emerging  granite  cliff,  and  tore  off 
this  little  quartz  fragment.  It  has  since  been 
rolled  upon  the  beaches  of  unnamed  seas,  and 
swept  in  floods  along  vanished  river-beds. 
Frozen  fast  in  the  great  glaciers,  it  has  been 
ground  along  for  hundreds  of  miles  over  the 
old  rock  surfaces,  scratching  them  as  it  went, 


DRINKING-WATER  AND  ICE   SUPPLIES.         19 

until  now,  far  from  its  home,  a  tiny  glass-like 
particle,  it  has  come  to  rest  at  the  door  with 
myriads  of  its  fellows,  of  kindred  experiences, 
as  a  part  of  your  acre. 

In  the  superficial  layers  of  the  soil  the  rock- 
ruin  particles  are  variously  mingled  with  frag- 
ments of  dead  vegetable  and  animal  material 
and  particles  of  organic  matter  of  various 
kinds,  thus  making  the  loam  or  mould  which 
is  suited  for  the  support  of  living  plants.  We 
thus  have  for  the  purpose  of  our  present  study 
to  consider  the  earth  as  having,  first,  a  rock 
surface,  for  the  most  part,  impervious  to  water, 
save  where  here  and  there  it  finds  its  way 
between  the  strata  or  into  caverns  or  fissures ; 
and,  second,  outside  of  this  a  soil  surface  which 
in  contour  corresponds  only  in  a  very  general 
way  with  the  rock  surface  lying  at  varying 
distances  beneath. 

In  most  regions  then  a  more  or  less  porous 
envelope  spreads  itself  over  the  solid  earth. 
This  porous  envelope  of  loam  or  sand  or 
gravel  is  very  frequently  interrupted,  as  one 
follows  it  downward,  by  layers  of  clay  im- 
pervious to  water,  which  form  more  or  less 


2O        DRINKING-WATER  AND  ICE  SUPPLIES. 

extensive,  often  bowl-like,  shelves  on  which 
the  water  which  soaks  through  the  porous 
soil  collects.  Layers  of  solid  rock,  too,  not 
infrequently  lie  interspersed  with  porous-soil 
layers,  and  all  often  slope  in  varying  directions. 

Now  we  are  very  apt  to  think  of  the  soil 
which  covers  the  earth  as  a  very  good  material 
for  plants  to  take  root  and  grow  in,  and  when 
we  have  considered  how  the  plant  rootlets 
take  up  food  and  water  from  the  soil,  we  are 
apt  to  think  that  we  have  exhausted  the  study 
of  its  activities,  and  that  all  below  the  surface 
is  dark  and  still  and  passive  as  the  underlying 
rock  itself. 

But  this  is  very  far  from  being  true.  In 
the  first  place,  the  fragments  or  particles  which 
make  up  the  soil  are  so  irregular  in  shape  that 
even  when  closely  packed  they  always  leave 
spaces  between  them  filled  with  air ;  these  air 
spaces  are  often  very  small  when  the  earth 
particles  are  fine, — larger  when  the  solid  parti- 
cles are  larger.  This  air  between  the  particles 
of  the  soil  is  called  "  ground  air,"  and  when 
the  soil  is  deep  there  may  be  in  the  aggregate 
a  real  subterranean  atmosphere  of  great  ex- 


DRINKING-WATER  AND  ICE  SUPPLIES.        21 

tent.  This  ground  air,  as  a  whole,  is  not 
exactly  the  same  in  composition  as  that  we 
breathe,  because  it  is  apt  to  contain  more 
carbonic  acid  and  less  oxygen,  and  in  cities 
where  there  are  leaky  gas  pipes,  may  contain 
a  good  deal  of  illuminating  gas. 

This  underground  air  is,  however,  almost  as 
ceaselessly  in  motion  as  is  that  in  which  we 
move.  Whenever  the  ground  gets  heated,  it 
streams  out  of  the  myriad  pores  of  the  surface 
into  the  sunshine.  When  the  ground  cools, 
back  through  the  same  pores  rushes  the  aerial 
air.  Every  wintf  which  sweeps  the  surface 
moves  the  air  beneath  in  great  volumes. 
With  every  rain  it  is  driven  deeper  down. 
The  movements  of  this  buried  atmosphere  are 
slow,  because  it  must  find  its  way  around  the 
myriads  of  soil  particles  which  block  its  course. 
But  it  is  of  great  extent  and  of  great  import- 
ance, as  we  shall  see  by  and  by. 

But  it  is  not  with  air  alone  that  the  soil 
pores  are  filled.  They  form  the  great  land 
reservoirs  of  water.  When  the  rain  falls  on 
the  dry  porous  soil,  for  a  time  at  least,  a  good 
deal  of  it  soaks  into  it,  displacing  the  air, 


22        DRINKING-WATER  AND  ICE  SUPPLIES. 

driving  it  out,  or  sideways,  or  deeper  down.  If 
the  rain  continue,  deeper  and  deeper  trickle 
the  drops  through  loam  or  sand  or  gravel, 
until  at  last  they  reach  an  impervious  layer, 
such  as  rock  or  clay,  and  here  may  collect,  if 
the  surface  be  suitable,  in  larger  or  smaller  sub- 
terranean puddles  or  ponds  or  lakes  ;  or  if  these 
impervious  strata  slope,  may  form  broad,  slowly 
flowing  underground  streams,  which  at  last 
empty  into  some  surface  body  of  water,  such  as 
a  river  or  a  lake,  at  a  lower  level. 

This  subterranean  water,  either  still  or 
flowing,  is  called  "ground  water,"  so  that 
almost  everywhere  we  go  we  are  not  only 
treading  upon  a  buried  atmosphere,  but  are 
walking  over  hidden  ponds  and  lakes  and 
streams. 

If  you  take  a  shallow  basin  and  nearly  fill  it 
with  sand,  and  then  pour  on  to  the  sand  about 
one  third  of  the  basinfull  of  water,  the  water 
will  soon  sink  away,  collecting  for  a  certain 
depth  at  the  bottom  of  the  basin  quite  out  of 
sight,  but  as  really  there,  with  its  surface 
about  as  level  as  if  there  were  no  sand  in  the 
dish.  This  represents  the  "  ground  water  "  of 
the  soil. 


f  UNIVERSITY  J 

DRINKING-WATER  AN&^^^^^^ES.        2$ 

Or,  to  put  it  in  another  way.  Suppose  you 
have  a  small  lake  in  a  hollow  between  the 
hills,  fed  by  the  rain-water  which  runs  off  from 
the  adjoining  slopes.  If  you  fill  this  lake  full 
of  sand,  so  that  the  water  is  no  longer  visible, 
the  lake  is  there  all  the  same,  but  it  has  now 
become  ground  water  instead  of  surface  water, 
and  is  a  type  of  the  fixed  subterranean  sources 
of  many  of  our  water  supplies.  If  the  ground- 
water  level  lies  just  at  the  surface  of  the  soil, 
remaining  so  for  considerable  periods,  we  have 
a  swamp  or  bog. 

For  some  distance  above  the  level  of  the 
ground  water  the  pores  of  the  soil  are  more  or 
less  filled  with  water  drawn  up  by  capillary  at- 
traction. Most  of  the  time  in  low  or  wooded 
regions,  and  after  rains  in  dry,  sandy  countries, 
the  pores  all  through  the  soil  contain  more  or 
less  moisture,  which  is  carried  out  into  the 
atmosphere  with  the  tiny  currents  of  ground 
air,  spoken  of  above, — thus  contributing  by 
evaporation  very  largely  at  times  to  the  aerial 
moisture  which  finally  may  gather  in  the 
clouds. 

But  we  must  look  a  little  more  closely  at 
this  ground  water,  which  we  should  thoroughly 


24        DRINKING-WATER  AND  ICE   SUPPLIES. 

understand,  if  we  wish  to  study  wells  and 
springs  intelligently  by  and  by. 

The  soil  layers  over  the  earth's  surface  were 
largely  deposited  under  the  influence  of  water, 
which  formed  great  seas  and  lakes,  where  now 
is  land,  and  so  the  ruggedness  of  the  solid  rock 
surface  is  largely  concealed.  We  can  get  lit- 
tle idea  from  the  broad  sweeps  or  gentle 
curves  or  swelling  banks  formed  by  the  soil,  of 
the  hollows  and  jagged  projections  and  uneven 
surfaces  of  the  rock  below. 

Some  idea  of  the  ground  water  and  its  rela- 
tions to  various  rock  and  soil  layers  may  be 
obtained  from  a  study  of  Fig.  i,  which  repre- 
sents a  section  of  the  ground  and  underlying 
rock  in  a  typical  region.  The  water  is  indi- 
cated by  the  blue  color. 

Here  is  the  primitive  rock  below,  into  which 
the  water  does  not  soak.  This  rock  has  been 
eroded  or  torn  or  worn  away  above,  leaving 
rough  sloping  surfaces,  in  which  are  larger  and 
smaller  depressions.  This  whole  region  has 
been  under  water  some  time  or  other,  for  it  is 
covered  with  rock  detritus  deposited  in  layers, 
gravel  first,  then  sand,  and  over  this  the  loam, 


DRINKING-WATER  AND  ICE   SUPPLIES.        2$ 

with  its  thin  covering  of  vegetation.  In  the 
central  portion  of  the  region  is  a  thin,  im- 
pervious, somewhat  basin-like  clay  bed,  lying 
over  the  gravel.  A  river  runs  through  the 
valley  in  a  direction  away  from  the  observer. 
The  smooth  swelling  contour  of  land  gives  no 
intimation  of  the  roughness  of  the  rock  sur- 
faces below. 

It  will  be  seen  that  the  water  which  falls  in 
rain  on  the  hills  at  the  right  of  the  drawing 
will,  wh^n  the  hollows  and  subterranean  lakes 
there  are  filled,  run  along  down  the  sloping 
rock  surface,  entirely  out  of  sight,  as  slowly 
flowing  ground  water,  and  finally  collect  in 
the  valley,  forming  a  deep  subterranean  reser- 
voir in  the  gravel  beds.  It  will  further  be 
observed  that  the  rain  which  falls  in  the  valley, 
in  the  region  of  the  village,  may  be  in  part 
carried  off  by  the  river,  in  part  soak  into  the 
sand  layers  and  gather  on  the  impervious 
clay  bed,  forming  a  reservoir  of  ground  water 
above  and  entirely  independent  of  the  larger 
water  mass  below  it.  When  the  level  of  this 
clay-bed  water  is  low,  it  may  be  reinforced 
from  the  river  which  flows  just  above  it.  When 


26        DRINKING-WATER  AND  ICE   SUPPLIES. 

it  is  high,  the  water  may  run  through  the 
pores  of  the  sand  into  the  river  and  so  be  in 
part  carried  off. 

It  will  be  seen  that  the  ground  water  comes 
to  the  surface  at  one  point  in  the  little  valley 
on  the  high  ground  at  the  right,  thus  forming 
a  spring,  the  overflow  from  which  disappears 
directly  in  the  sand  and  runs  on  to  the  lower 
level.  ' 

It  is  plain  that  the  residents  of  the  little 
village  in  the  valley  have  four  accessible 
sources  of  water  supply  for  domestic  use. 
The  most  obvious  of  these  is  the  river.  The 
next  might  be  rain-water  collected  in  cistern^. 
The  next  is  from  wells.  Finally,  if  it  were 
abundant  enough  there,  the  water  might  be 
brought  in  pipes  from  the  spring  on  the  hills 
some  distance  off  to  the  right. 

Now  every  resident  in  this  village  could  get 
water  by  digging  a  well  close  to  his  house, 
except  the  one  who  unwittingly  bought  the 
land  just  over  the  mass  of  solid  rock  which 
rises  above  the  ground  water  to  the  left  of  the 
middle  of  the  picture.  Some  of  these  people 
would  have  to  dig  deeper  wells  than  others, 


DRINKING-WATER  AND  ICE  SUPPLIES.       2/ 

but  all  would  sooner  or  later  strike  into  the 
great  subterranean  reservoir  largely  fed  from 
the  adjacent  hills. 

The  people  who  live  over  the  clay  bed  could 
get  water  by  digging  comparatively  shallow 
wells.  But,  as  will  be  seen,  the  supply  would 
not  be  large  unless  fed  by  the  river,  and, 
moreover,  it  would  be  water  into  which  the 
drainage  of  the  houses  could  readily  pass.  If 
they  went  a  little  deeper,  however,  piercing 
the  clay  bed,  they  would  strike  into  the  great 
supply. 

This  object-lesson  will  suffice  to  illustrate 
the  more  common  subterranean  sources  of 
water  supply.  The  wells  and  the  springs,  it  will 
be  seen,  are  after  all  supplied  from  the  same 
sources,  only  in  the  one  the  water  has  to  be  dug 
for,  while  in  the  other,  it  comes  spontaneously 
to  the  surface  ;  or,  as  it  would  perhaps  be  more 
correct  to  say,  the  surface  sinks  to  it. 

In  the  so-called  artesian  wells  from  which 
the  water  gushes  out,  the  ground  water  has 
found  its  way  between  two  impervious  strata 
and  is  kept  here  under  pressure  from  the 
water  crowding  it  from  the  sides,  and  so  when 


28  DRINKING-WATER  AND  ICE  SUPPLIES. 

a  bore  is  made  through  the  upper  stratum,  it 
comes  gushing  up.  (See  Fig.  2.)  Sometimes 
these  accumulations  are  very  large,  so  that  the 
water  which  is  forced  up  may  have  found 
entrance  between  the  impervious  strata  many 
miles  away  from  the  well.  This  is  the  case  in 
the  new  artesian-well  supply  of  the  city  of 
Memphis,  Tenn.  The  water  here  enters  the 
sand  layers  from  forty  to  sixty  miles  away, 
and  moves  slowly  along  between  impervious 
clay  beds,  filling,  under  pressure  from  the 
crowding  water  behind,  the  underground  basin 
below  the  town. 

The  rate  of  flow  of  the  ordinary  ground 
water  varies,  of  course,  a  good  deal  depending 
upon  the  porosity  of  the  soil  and  the  slope  of 
the  impervious  surfaces,  but  in  general  it  is 
very  slow,  averaging  not  much  more,  as  a  rule, 
than  a  foot  an  hour. 

We  are  very  apt  to  think  that  the  volume  of 
a  river  does  not  change  much  as  it  flows,  ex- 
cept when  visible  tributary  streams  join  it. 
But  it  very  often  happens  that  the  slowly  flow- 
ing ground  water  coming  down  unseen  from 
the  hills  is  pouring  in  its  myriad  tiny  streams, 


30       DRINKING-WATER  AND  ICE   SUPPLIES. 

unseen  because  below  the  water  level,  in  such 
aggregate  amount  as  to  greatly  augment  the 
river's  volume  from  mile  to  mile.  It  not  in- 
frequently happens,  however,  that  the  banks 
and  bed  of  a  river  become  so  tight  and  imper- 
vious, from  the  silt  which  little  by  little  has 
been  packed  into  the  soil's  pores,  that  it  flows 
along  as  if  in  a  trough  through  a  veritable  lake 
of  ground  water,  and  for  long  distances  does 
not  mingle  with  it.  The  ground  water  may, 
under  these  conditions,  when  the  whole  coun- 
try slopes,  be  flowing  on  with  its  crawling  ciy- 
rent  underneath  the  soil,  side  by  side  with  the 
rushing  river,  with  which  it  only  mingles  at 
last  when  both  are  merged  into  a  larger  stream. 
It  even  not  infrequently  happens  that  the 
ground  water  may  in  a  limited  region  be  flowing 
transversely  to  the  river's  flow  at  the  surface. 


CHAPTER  V. 

KINDS   OF   WATER. 

IF  we  could  run  a  pipe  far  up  into  the  air 
and  draw  our  water  from  the  clouds,  we 
should  be  spared  a  world  of  trouble  and 
annoyance.  Up  there  is  water  distilled  by  the 
sun  itself,  and  while  it  stays  there  it  is  just 
simple  H2O,  pure  enough  to  satisfy  the  atomic 
soul  longings  of  the  chemist  himself. 

But  the  moment  it  gets  fairly  condensed 
into  available  form  and  begins  to  fall  through 
the  air,  especially  in  inhabited  regions,  it  draws 
into  solution  more  or  less  of  the  atmospheric 
gases,  oxygen,  nitrogen,  and  carbonic  acid.  It 
takes  up,  too,  more  complex  chemical  substan- 
ces when  they  are  present  in  the  atmosphere, 
such  as  ammonia  and  various  acids.  As  the 
rain-drops  sweep  through  dusty  air,  they  wash 
out  of  it  and  carry  down  with  them  the  mul- 

31 


32        DRINKING-WATER  AND  ICE   SUPPLIES. 

tifarious  particles  which  compose  the  dust, 
— bits  of  coal  and  soot,  particles  of  iron  and 
stone  and  lime  and  various  fabrics,  tiny  frag- 
ments of  plants,  and  the  numberless  forms  of 
life,  called  germs,  etc.  All  these  foreign 
things  are  gathered  in  when  rain-water  is  col- 
lected in  cisterns  for  household  use. 

When  the  water  reaches  the  earth  and 
washes  its  more  or  less  dirty  surfaces  and  its 
people,  with  their  houses  and  streets  and  the 
animals  and  plants,  it  takes  up  a  good  many 
more  impurities,  notable  among  these  being 
the  broken-down  remnants  of  things  once 
alive,  now  called  "  organic  matter."  A  portion 
of  this  soiled  water  evaporates  into  the  air, 
leaving  its  dirt  accumulations  behind.  A  por- 
tion is  taken  up  by  plant  rootlets,  while  the  re- 
mainder either  clings  in  the  pores  of  the  soil, 
or  slowly  sinks  to  deeper  depths,  until  it 
reaches  the  ground  water. 

Now,  a  very  significant  thing  has  been  ob- 
served in  regard  to  this  water  which  sinks  into 
the  soil  charged  with  all  kinds  and  all  degrees 
of  foreign  material,  partly  in  solution,  partly 
in  suspension.  That  is,  that  if  the  layers  of 


DRINKING-WATER  AND  ICE  SUPPLIES.        33 

soil  are  thick  enough  and  of  the  right  kinds, 
and  if  the  water  passes  slowly  enough  through 
it,  by  the  time  it  reaches  the  ground-water 
reservoir,  it  may  have  largely  freed  itself  of  its 
foreign  burdens,  and  joins  its  kin  below  in 
pure  and  wholesome  form.  The  water  while 
on  the  earth's  surface  may  be  of  a  very  disa- 
greeable color  and  odor ;  it  may  contain  many 
chemical  substances  of  most  undesirable  nature, 
and  whole  hordes  of  minute  living  things. 
But  by  the  time  it  reaches  the  ground  water, 
it  may  have  lost  nearly  all  of  the  foreign 
chemical  substances  and  all  of  its  suspended 
matters,  so  efficient  are  the  complex  physical 
and  chemical  processes  which  in  the  earth's 
great  underground  laboratory  are  ceaselessly 
going  on. 

This  is  called  natural  filtration,  and  is  one 
of  those  great  processes  by  which  in  far-reach- 
ing cycles  Mother  Earth  renovates  her  limited 
stock  of  life-stuff,  and  so  keeps  her  children 
supplied  always  with  the  best.  When,  how- 
ever, her  pet  nursling,  man,  puts  his  careless 
or  ignorant  or  meddling  finger  into  the  ma- 
chinery and  disturbs  the  regular  course  of 


34        DRINKING-WATER  AND  ICE   SUPPLIES. 

things  by  crowding  too  much  filthy  material 
into  one  place,  or  by  drawing  too  heavily  upon 
the  supplies  which  should  slowly  accumulate, 
or  by  cutting  off  the  forests  which  shelter 
large  regions  from  too  rapid  water  losses,  he 
is  very  apt  to  find  that  he  has  upset  the  bal- 
ance of  things  and  usually  suffers  for  it,  sooner 
or  later,  by  those  personal  punishments  for 
ignorance  or  folly,  which  we  call  disease. 

A  great  deal  of  thought  and  research  have 
been  expended  in  trying  to  make  out  the 
nature  and  details  of  this  marvellous  cleansing 
power  of  the  soil.  Aside  from  the  more  ob- 
vious alterations  in  the  chemical  constitution 
of  the  foreign  ingredients  of  the  water,  the 
chemists  used  to  be  disposed  to  sum  up  the 
nature  of  the  process  by  saying, — oxidation. 
This  was  very  well  for  its  time,  but  we  shall 
presently  see  that  a  very  subtle  and  very  curi- 
ous agency  is  at  work  here,  which  until  re- 
cently has  been  nearly  wholly  ignored. 

It  happens  in  many  regions  that  the  water, 
as  it  soaks  into  the  earth  or  runs  over  the 
rocks,  not  only  gives  up  some  of  its  foreign 
ingredients,  but  actually  takes  up  others.  In 


DRINKING-WATER  AND  ICE  SUPPLIES.        35 

this  way,  water  may  take  up  mineral  sub- 
stances which  make  it  what  we  call  "hard,"  in 
distinction  from  rain-water  and  most  surface 
waters,  which  are  "  soft." 

Let  us  now  run  hastily  over  the  different 
sources  of  water  supply,  and  note  in  a  general 
way  their  qualities  under  the  usual  conditions. 

Rain-water  in  the  open  country  may  be  very 
pure  and  good.  But  in  towns  or  in  the  vicin- 
ity of  certain  manufactories,  rain-water  col- 
lected in  cisterns  is  usually  not  very  good  for 
drinking  and  cooking  purposes,  unless  it  be 
in  some  way  artificially  purified. 

The  ground  water  in  most  regions,  particu- 
larly if  it  is  situated  at  some  distance  beneath 
the  surface,  so  that  it  has  been  purified  by 
ground  filtration,  is  naturally  and  usually 
good.  The  deeper  water,  such  as  is  stored 
in  the  great  underground  reservoirs  and  comes 
up  in  artesian  wells  and  in  the  varied  mineral 
and  other  deep  springs,  is  reckoned  as  one  of 
the  purest  sources  of  supply. 

The  purity  of  surface  waters,  such  as  those 
of  lakes  and  pools  and  streams,  depends  very 
much  upon  the  region  from  which  they  are 


36        DRINKING-WATER  AND  ICE  SUPPLIES. 

fed,  and  especially  upon  the  behavior  and  in- 
telligence of  the  people  who  live  near  their 
borders.  They  may  be  said  to  naturally  furnish 
good  water,  although  in  the  case  of  rivers, 
foreign  material,  such  as  clay  and  other  fine 
particles,  may  at  all  times,  or  at  certain  periods 
of  the  year,  be  washed  in  in  such  quantities  as 
to  make  the  water  turbid,  and  so  greatly  inter- 
fere with  its  attractiveness,  if  they  do  not  make 
it  actually  unwholesome. 

The  great  trouble  with  rivers,  and  more  or 
less  with  lakes,  is,  that  in  their  vicinity  people 
are  very  apt  to  settle  and  build  cities  and 
towns  and  dwellings,  and  the  sewage  and 
other  waste  of  these  residences  are  apt  very 
naturally  but  very  wickedly,  to  be  allowed  to 
run  directly  into  the  waters,  thus  polluting 
them,  if  not  for  the  sinners  themselves,  in 
rivers  at  least,  for  their  neighbors  down  the 
stream. 

We  shall  be  obliged,  disagreeable  as  the 
subject  is,  to  look  a  little  more  closely  by  and 
by  into  the  various  ways  in  which  man  be- 
comes his  own  worst  enemy  by  rendering 
fairly  unfit  for  use  those  sources  of  water 


DRINKING-WATER  AND  ICE   SUPPLIES.         37 

supply  which  Nature  has  so  bountifully  and  so 
perfectly  adapted  to  the  uses  of  the  clean  but 
not  the  dirty  dwellers  in  her  domain.  But  be- 
fore we  do  this,  we  must  try  to  gain  a  little 
clearer  insight  into  the  way  in  which  by  natural 
filtration  the  great  underground  sources  are 
kept  clean  and  pure. 


CHAPTER  VI. 

A  STUDY   OF  THE   LIVING   EARTH. 

WHEN  we  have  learned  what  we  can  of 
the  nature  and  extent  and  movements 
of  the  buried  atmosphere,  and  of  the  hidden 
lakes  and  ponds  and  streams,  and  of  their  multi- 
tudinous feeders  trickling  through  the  soil,  we 
might  seem  to  have  exhausted  the  story  of 
this  subterranean  activity,  changing  with  the 
winds  and  rains  and  dew-falls  and  with  the 
alternations  of  the  seasons  and  the  days  and 
nights.  But  the  most  curious  and  complex 
phases  of  the  story  are  yet  to  come. 

We  cannot  consider  here  the  vast  and  cease- 
less changes  which  are  going  on  in  the  soil 
under  the  influence  of  plant  roots  and  of  vari- 
ous underground  animals,  especially  of  worms, 
though  these  might  well  form  a  chapter  in  the 
story  of  the  living  earth.  We  will  also  tarry 

38 


DRINKING-WATER  AND  ICE   SUPPLIES.        39 

__ * 

here  only  to  allude  to  the  varied  chemical 
combinations  and  decompositions  which  go  on 
in  the  soil  between  the  foreign  substances  in 
the  water  and  the  soil  ingredients  as  the  water 
trickles  among  them. 

It  is  estimated  that  in  a  cubical  mass  of  fine 
sand  about  three  feet  on  a  side,  the  aggregate 
free  surf  aces  of  all  the  sand  particles  may  amount 
to  many  thousand  square  feet.  But  it  would 
take  us  into  too  intricate  a  subject  were  we  to 
dwell  upon  the  curious  and  powerful  physical 
effects,  upon  the  water  and  its  ingredients,  of 
these  enormous  aggregate  surfaces  of  the  soil 
particles.  By  means  of  these  large  surfaces 
they  are  able  to  attract  to  themselves  thin 
sheets  of  the  water,  and  thus  expose  it  to  the 
action  of  the  oxygen  of  the  ground  air,  or  in 
other  ways  to  separate  and  retain  or  destroy 
foreign  substances,  even  those  in  solution, 
such  as  coloring  materials  and  various  poisons, 
and  many  kinds  of  organic  matter. 

By  organic  substances  we  mean  materials 
which  have  once  formed  a  part  of  some  living 
thing,  animal  or  plant,  but  are  now  dead  and 
ready  in  Nature's  cycle  to  be  resolved  into  sinv 


40        DRINKING-WATER  AND  ICE   SUPPLIES. 

pier  combinations  fit  to  be  used  again.  These 
organic  materials  which  the  soil  filtration  re- 
moves from  the  water,  contain,  as  a  rule,  a 
good  deal  of  carbon  and  nitrogen  and  hydro- 
gen in  varied  combinations.  These  are  apt  to 
be  torn  asunder  and  separated  from  their 
other  constituents  and  recombined  in  the  form 
of  new-formed  water,  carbonic  acid,  and  nitric 
or  some  closely  allied  acids,  which  again  may 
enter  into  new  liaisons  without  delay.  This 
disposal  of  the  nitrogen  of  the  old  dead  or- 
ganic matter,  by  its  conversion  into  new  oxy- 
genated compounds,  is  called  "  nitrification," 
and  is  one  of  the  most  important  cleansing 
processes  which  goes  on  in  nature. 

We  can  readily  enough  understand  how,  by 
straining  dirty  water  through  the  soil,  most  of 
the  substances  held  in  suspension  might  be 
removed.  We  can  readily  assent,  as  a  tempo- 
rary hypothesis,  to  the  conjecture  that  the 
more  complex  changes  to  which  we  have  al- 
luded, such  as  the  chemical  decomposition  and 
recombinations  of  the  elements  of  organic 
matter  might  in  some  way  be  explained  by 
their  oxidation  when  exposed  over  the  enor- 


DRINKING-WATER  AND  ICE  SUPPLIES.        4! 

mous  aggregate  surface  of  the  soil  particles. 
In  fact,  this  general  view  was  held  to  be  meas- 
urably satisfactory  for  a  long  time. 

But  after  a  while  the  restless  souls  of  the 
chemists  and  biologists  became  dissatisfied 
with  such  a  general  explanation  of  so  important 
a  process.  They,  moreover,  fell  upon  some 
observations  which  seemed  to  indicate  that 
there  might  be  something  more  in  the  matter. 

It  occurred  to  somebody  once  to  test  the 
water-cleansing  capacity  of  a  selected  volume 
of  soil  in  the  laboratory.  When  this  had  been 
done,  the  same  soil  was  heated  up  very  hot,  so 
that  if  there  were  any  living  things  in  it  they 
would,  said  the  experimenter,  certainly  have 
been  killed.  When  the  soil  had  cooled,  he 
tested  its  cleansing  powers  for  dirty  water 
again,  and  found  that  they  had  been  largely 
annihilated.  The  sand  and  gravel  acted  as 
a  strainer  still,  and  separated  the  coarser  im- 
purities from  the  water,  but  these  more  com- 
plex and,  on  the  whole,  much  more  important 
changes  in  organic  matter  did  not  occur. 

Now,  why  was  this  ?  Here  in  the  soil 
were  the  same  solid  particles  unchanged, 


42        DRINKING-WATER  AND  ICE  SUPPLIES. 

the  same  enormous  surfaces,  the  same  sort 
of  air-filled  pores,  but  the  water  was  not 
purified  as  it  was  before  the  heating  of  the 
soil.  This  matter  is  worth  looking  into,  be- 
cause it  involves  some  facts  which  we  must 
very  thoroughly  understand  if  we  are  going  to 
become  intelligent  judges  of  the  water  supplies 
of  our  households. 

A  good  while  before  these  observations  had 
been  made  on  the  effects  of  heating  the  soil, 
scientific  men  had  been  exploring  a  new  world 
of  life  among  organisms,  which  are  so  minute 
that  they  lie  far  beyond  the  range  of  the 
unaided  vision, — I  mean  the  bacteria.  These 
and  their  modes  of  study  have  already  been 
described  in  sufficient  detail  for  our  purposes 
in  two  other  books  of  this  little  series,1  to  which 
I  must  refer. 

It  will  be  sufficient  to  say  here  that  these 
tiny  organisms  can  be  readily  cultivated  arti- 
ficially in  the  laboratory.  If  one  takes  any  of 
the  substances  which  contain  them,  or  to  which 
they  cling,  as  earth,  air,  water,  and  nearly 
every  other  solid  thing  in  inhabited  regions,  as 

1  "  The  Story  of  the  Bacteria,"  "Dust  and  Its  Dangers." 


DRINKING-WATER  AND  ICE   SUPPLIES.        43 

well  as  the  bodies  of  men  and  animals,  and 
mixes  portions  of  them  with  a  little  specially 
prepared  bacterial  food,  these  organisms  will 
grow,  and  can  be  separated  into  species  in 
tubes  each  by  itself,  and  the  life  history  of 
each  form  followed  out  in  detail. 

The  more  common  and  useful  of  the  meth- 
ods employed  in  studying  the  bacteria  now 
are  those  devised  and  formulated  more  than 
a  decade  ago  by  Dr.  Robert  Koch,  of  Berlin, 
whose  great  achievements  in  this  and  allied 
fields  are  to-day  so  widely  known  and  valued. 

Soon  after  the  introduction  of  these  methods 
of  studying  the  minute  forms  of  vegetable  life, 
students  in  this  new  field  went  scurrying  hither 
and  yon  with  their  prying  tests,  and  when  it 
occurred  to  some  of  them  to  see  what  a  little 
common  field  earth  had  to  show,  and  they 
planted  a  few  tiny  fragments  of  this  earth- 
wreckage  by  scattering  its  particles  through  a 
little  of  the  prepared  bacterial  or  germ  food, 
they  found,  after  a  couple  of  days,  that  wher- 
ever a  tiny  particle  of  the  soil  had  lain  there 
had  grown  a  perfectly  colossal  number  of  little 
plant  masses,  each  from  a  single  germ.  When 


44        DRINKING-WATER  AND  ICE   SUPPLIES. 

these  early  observers  had  recovered  from  their 
surprise  at  finding  that  the  soil  was  fairly 
swarming  with  these  invisible  living  germs, 
they  took  measured  amounts  of  the  earth,  and 
found  that  not  infrequently  in  a  mass  of  earth 
no  bigger  than  a  pea  there  might  be  many 
millions  of  living  germs.  Some  are  moulds, 
some  yeasts,  but  they  are  mostly  bacteria  of 
many  kinds. 

It  was  also  learned  that  while  these  minute 
invisible  germs  were  everywhere  very  abun- 
dant in  the  soil,  the  number  varied  a  good 
deal  in  different  places.  It  was  further  found, 
and  this  is  a  very  significant  thing,  that  in  gen- 
eral the  number  of  living  germs  diminishes  as 
we  go  downward  in  the  soil,  until  finally  we 
find  in  most  regions  that  at  a  depth  which 
varies  from  three  to  five  feet  they  cease  to  be 
present  in  any  considerable  number,  or  are 
absent  altogether.  Of  course  if  the  soil  has 
been  recently  disturbed  to  a  considerable 
depth,  or  if  it  be  frequently  flooded  with  dirty 
water  or  sewage,  or  other  organic  refuse,  the 
depths  at  which  these  germs  are  found  may  be 
much  greater  than  those  mentioned  as  usual. 


DRINKING-WATER  AND  ICE  SUPPLIES.        45 

But  what  has  all  this  to  do,  you  say,  with 
the  purification  of  water  by  the  soil.  Bacteria 
and  other  germs  are  among  the  forms  of  dirt 
in  the  water  which  are  to  be  removed  by  soil 
filtration.  What  can  they  have  to  do  with  the 
purification  process  ?  Is  it  possible  that  they 
will  kill  one  another  in  the  soil,  and  feed  upon 
and  thus  destroy  in  its  harmful  shape  the  dead 
and  poisonous  organic  matter  of  the  water? 
Yes,  these  are  just  some  of  the  performances 
which  these  invisible  friends  of  man  have  been 
trained  into  through  the  long  cycles  which 
ushered  in  his  geologic  age. 

In  feeding  and  growing,  the  bacteria  tear 
apart  organic  matter  of  various  kinds.  A 
part  of  the  material  thus  released  from  its 
former  combinations  is  assimilated  by  the  bac- 
teria themselves  ;  a  part  is  set  free  to  share  in 
any  new  chemical  adventure  which  the  vicis- 
situdes of  time  and  place  and  season  may 
sanction. 

In  their  life  processes,  the  bacteria  may  set 
free  materials  which  are  different  for  each 
species,  and  which  are  varied  in  their  effects 
upon  other  living  things.  Some  of  these 


46       DRINKING-WATER  AND  ICE  SUPPLIES. 

freed  materials  do  no  harm,  either  to  the 
germs  which  elaborate  them  or  to  any  other 
living  things.  Some  of  them,  on  the  other 
hand,  may  when  they  are  present,  even  in 
very  minute  amounts,  poison  and  kill  either 
the  germs  which  formed  them  or  other  species. 

Now  recent  experiments  have  shown  that 
there  may  be  an  enormous  destruction  of 
germs  of  one  kind  or  another  in  the  soil, 
under  certain  conditions  ;  so  that  even  sewage- 
water,  containing  millions  of  living  germs  to 
every  pint,  if  poured  on  a  limited  portion  of 
soil  under  proper  conditions,  year  in,  year  out, 
may  come  out  below  clear  and  practically  free 
from  germs  ;  while,  as  examinations  show,  the 
number  of  living  germs  in  the  soil  used  as  a 
filter  does  not  increase  beyond  a  certain  point. 

In  the  hodgepodge  of  new  chemical  ma- 
terials, which  are  produced  in  fluids  which 
contain  many  species  of  bacteria  growing 
together,  it  is  difficult  to  say  very  much  about 
the  exact  nature  of  these  different  new  and 
sometimes  poisonous  substances,  but  that  they 
act  to  continually  destroy  some  of  the  germs 
is  pretty  well  ascertained. 


CHAPTER  VII. 
THE  LIVING  EARTH. — (Concluded) 

LET  us  now  see  if  we  can  bring  a  little 
order  out  of  this  apparently  chaotic 
condition  of  affairs  in  the  purification  of  water 
as  it  trickles  through  the  soil.  The  facts  are* 
that  we  may  start  with  water  soaking  into  the 
surface,  which  contains  not  only  large  numbers 
of  exceedingly  minute  bacteria  and  other  germs, 
and  various  organic  and  inorganic  suspended 
particles,  but  holds  in  actual  solution  organic 
and  other  foreign  materials.  At  the  end  of 
the  soil  filtration,  the  water,  as  it  reaches  its 
resting-place  in  the  ground-water  reservoirs, 
may  contain  no  bacteria,  no  suspended  par- 
ticles of  any  kind,  and  no  organic  matter  in 
solution.  Its  only  foreign  ingredients  may 
be  small  amounts  of  inorganic  compounds,  of 
no  special  practical  importance. 

47 


48       DRINKING-WATER  AND  ICE  SUPPLIES. 

Great  light  has  been  thrown  on  this  prob- 
lem by  carefully  conducted  experiments  on 
limited  quantities  of  soil  or  sand,  subjected  to 
conditions  as  nearly  akin  as  might  be  to  those 
of  natural  filtration. 

In  the  first  place,  it  has  been  found  that  if 
one  starts  with  an  artificial  filter-bed  of  per- 
fectly clean  sand,  containing  no  bacteria,  and 
floods  it  with  dirty  water,  the  water  which 
comes  through  for  the  first  few  days  and  for  a 
much  longer  time,  if  the  weather  be  cold,  will 
be  but  little  if  at  all  purified.  Its  coarser  sus- 
pended particles  may  have  been  caught  in  the 
sand  pores,  and  so  it  may  be  clearer,  but  its 
dissolved  organic  matter  and  its  bacteria  may 
not  be  at  all  diminished.  Indeed  for  some 
time,  strange  as  it  may  appear,  the  numbers  of 
the  bacteria  may  have  largely  increased.  In 
fact,  it  appears  that  the  pores  of  such  a  fresh 
sand-filter  with  the  organic  matter  suspended 
in  the  water  form  a  most  excellent  breeding- 
place  for  bacteria. 

This  seems  discouraging.  But  let  the  ex- 
periment go  on,  and  after  a  while  if  the  dirty 
water  has  not  been  forced  through  the  sand 


DRINKING-WATER  AND  ICE  SUPPLIES.        49 

too  fast,  it  will  be  found  that  the  number  of 
living  germs  which  come  out  in  the  water  at 
the  bottom  is  growing  steadily  smaller,  and 
finally  the  water  may  be  nearly  or  quite  germ- 
free.  Now  if  the  chemist  exposes  some  of  the 
filtered  water  to  his  delicate  tests,  he  may  find 
that  the  organic  matter  which  was  in  solution 
in  the  water  at  the  top  has  already  diminished 
or  entirely  disappeared,  being  represented  per- 
haps by  nitrogen,  which  has  formed  harmless 
combinations  with  oxygen. 

It  really  seems  as  if  the  more  living,  growing 
bacteria  you  had  in  the  upper  layers  of  your 
filter-bed,  the  freer  became  the  water  below, 
both  of  bacteria  and  organic  matter.  This  is, 
in  fact,  the  case.  We  do  in  this  experiment 
what  nature  does  on  the  large  scale, — make 
the  bacteria  fight  the  organic  matter  and 
themselves. 

But  how  is  this  effect  produced  ?  The  bac- 
teria are  so  small  that  hundreds  of  them  could 
easily  pass  abreast  through  the  smallest  spaces 
between  the  sand  particles.  What  holds  them 
back? 

When  the  sand  particles  at  the  upper  por- 


50        DRINKING-WATER  AND  ICE   SUPPLIES. 

tion  of  these  filter-beds  have  been  carefully 
examined,  it  has  been  found  that  they  are, 
after  a  few  days,  completely  encased  in  a  slimy 
gelatin-like  envelope,  formed  of  a  material 
which  many  bacteria  secrete  around  themselves 
as  they  grow.  This  bacteria-formed  slime 
more  or  less  fills  the  pores  of  the  filter-bed 
enclosing  the  bacteria  themselves  and  the 
sand  particles,  and  catches  and  holds  fast  on 
its  sticky  surfaces,  not  only  suspended  matter 
of  various  kinds,  but  the  new  bacteria  which 
come  on  to  the  filter  and  start  to  work  their 
way  down  through  its  pores.  Here  many  of 
them,  like  good  prisoners,  set  to  work  to  make 
the  best  of  the  situation,  and  if  their  nature 
permits,  turn  to  and  help  to  make  more  of 
this  trap-slime  to  capture  the  next  comers. 

Many  of  the  entangled  germs,  however,  do 
not  form  this  material,  and  these  may  die  in 
large  numbers  where  they  lie.  On  the  other 
hand,  this  enforced  detention  is  simply  para- 
dise for  many  of  the  germs.  Here  they  are, 
resting  at  ease  in  a  slimy  confinement,  with 
boundless  supplies  of  just  the  food  they  want 
slowly  trickling  by  them.  This  food  is  dead 


DRINKING-WATER  AND  ICE   SUPPLIES.         51 

organic  matter,  which  the  average  bacterium 
simply  dotes  on  and  recks  little  whether  it  be 
in  solid  form  or  in  solution,  so  there  be  enough 
of  it.  At  it  he  goes  then,  and  by  some  wholly 
inscrutable  phase  of  the  life  power  in  his  tiny 
body,  asunder  fall  the  atoms  which  have  once 
been  parts  of  animal  or  plant.  That  part  which 
the  tiny  life  spark  needs  to  keep  its  glow 
a-going  is  appropriated.  The  rest  it  leaves, 
its  atomic  cravings  unsatisfied,  and  only  too 
ready  to  succumb  to  the  wiles  of  the  ever- 
amorous  oxygen,  which  must  always  be  pres- 
ent in  a  perfectly  acting  filter-bed. 

The  slowness  and  the  intermittent  character 
of  natural  soil  filtration  is  a  very  important 
matter  in  the  accomplishment  of  perfect  results, 
because  in  the  times  between  the  rains,  the 
soil  pores  have  a  chance  to  become  filled  with 
stores  of  oxygen,  in  the  form  of  ground  air. 

Behold  now  the  secret  of  this  marvellous 
alembic  into  which  may  go  things  most  foul 
and  harmful,  but  out  of  which  comes  the  very 
type  of  purity  and  cleanliness — clear  spring 
water.  It  is  largely  the  bacteria,  living,  grow- 
ing, multiplying,  following  their  life  impulses 


52       DRINKING-WATER  AND  ICE  SUPPLIES. 

silently  and  unseen,  each  after  its  kind,  which, 
supported  by  the  active  agency  of  oxygen, 
bring  about  this  beneficent  result.  And  this 
goes  on,  not  alone  at  the  behest  of  the  ex- 
perimenter, but  over  the  whole  wide  domain 
of  nature,  where  water  more  or  less  impure 
falls  upon  the  rock-ruins  of  the  earth  crust  and 
slowly  makes  its  way  to  the  capacious  bosom 
of  the  earth  through  the  bacteria-laden  upper- 
soil  layers. 

Now  it  may  be  that  this  sounds  very  fan- 
tastical, not  to  say  nonsensical,  but  it  is  an 
accurate  description,  only  in  simple  language, 
of  some  of  those  things  which  we  already 
know  about  the  purifying  agencies  of  the  soil. 
These  little  workmen,  the  bacteria,  are,  in  this 
domain  at  least,  our  benefactors,  and  we  should 
do  them  the  justice  to  acknowledge  it.  There 
are  black  sheep  among  them,  but  these  fellows 
delving  for  us  in  the  soil  are  assuredly  the 
whitest  of  the  white. 

We  are  slowly  making  headway  in  the 
knowledge  of  the  individual  species  of  bac- 
teria which  carry  on  this  work  for  us,  and 
already  expert  and  sagacious  workers,  both  in 


DRINKING-WATER  AND  ICE   SUPPLIES.        53 

this  country  and  abroad,  are  describing  and 
studying  the  life  history  and  naming  some  of 
those  particular  species  which  are  active  in 
disposing  of  the  organic  nitrogen  in  impure 
water  and  the  soil.  There  is  already  a  well- 
known  class  of  "  nitrifying  bacteria." 

We  shall  recur  briefly  to  this  subject  when 
we  come  to  consider  the  methods  for  artificial 
purification  of  water  for  domestic  use.  But 
now,  even,  it  would  seem,  when  we  glance 
back  at  these  curious  and  in  the  aggregate 
colossal  doings  of  the  myriad  of  tiny  plants 
in  the  soil,  that  we  were  not  too  fanciful  in 
entitling  this  long  chapter  "  A  Study  of  the 
Living  Earth." 


CHAPTER  VIII. 

SOME  WATER  IMPURITIES. 

IT  is  not  necessary  that  water  should  be 
chemically  pure  in  order  to  be  good  for 
the  more  important  domestic  uses,  such  as 
cooking  and  drinking.  In  fact,  no  natural 
water  is  wholly  free  from  some  foreign  ingre- 
dients. We  say,  in  general,  that  a  good  water 
should  be  transparent,  colorless,  odorless,  and 
tasteless,  and  should,  on  standing,  deposit  no 
sediment.  But  water  may  fulfil  all  these  con- 
ditions and  still  not  be  fit  for  domestic  use, 
because  some  of  the  most  objectionable  things 
which  water  may  contain  are  wholly  imper- 
ceptible to  the  unaided  senses.  I  do  not 
purpose  to  speak  here  in  detail  of  the  mineral 
substances  which  water  may  contain,  dissolved 
out  of  rocks,  and  which  may  make  it  what 
is  called  "  hard,"  or  be  present  in  such  form 

54 


DRINKING-WATER  AND  ICE  SUPPLIES.        55 

and  quantity  as  to  constitute  a  so-called  min- 
eral water,  but  only  of  those  materials  which 
may  fairly  be  called  impurities,  and  thus  may 
have  a  bearing  upon  the  salubrity  of  the  water. 

We  may  conveniently  divide  the  important 
impurities  of  water  into  two  groups :  first, 
those  which  are  not  living  ;  and  second,  those 
which  are  alive. 

i.  If  we  look  first  at  those  impurities  which 
are  not  alive,  we  find  that  these  may  be  either 
mineral  substances  in  the  form  of  particles  or 
in  solution,  or  they  may  be  organic  substances, 
also  in  the  form  of  particles  or  in  solution. 

Mineral  substances  in  the  form  of  particles 
in  water,  if  in  considerable  quantities,  as  in 
the  water  of  rivers  running  through  a  clay 
country,  make  the  water  so  uninviting  in 
appearance  that  people  are  very  apt  to  get  rid 
of  them  by  some  method  of  straining  the 
water,  and  so  we  need  say  no  more  about 
them.  Mineral  substances  in  solution  in  water 
may,  as  in  the  true  mineral  waters,  be  of 
certain  medicinal  uses,  and  do  not  constitute, 
as  we  have  said,  real  impurities. 

But  there  are  inorganic  compounds  which 


56        DRINKING-WATER  AND  ICE   SUPPLIES. 

the  chemist  finds  in  water,  which,  although 
not  in  themselves  at  all  harmful  to  the  con- 
sumer, indicate  that  there  have  been  in  the 
water  a  class  of  substances  which  are  of 
serious  import.  For  example,  except  in  cer- 
tain regions,  common  salt  in  considerable 
amount  does  not  belong  in  good  water,  nor 
does  nitric  acid  and  the  nitrates  and  nitrites, 
which  are  formed  from  the  oxidation  of  or- 
ganic matter,  nor  do  salts  of  ammonia.  Some 
of  these  things  are  found  naturally  in  certain 
regions,  and  then  their  presence  is  not  of 
importance.  They  are  in  themselves,  further- 
more, not  harmful  to  the  consumer.  Their 
significance,  under  ordinary  circumstances,  is 
this  :  they  usually  indicate  that  the  water  has 
been  polluted  with  sewage  or  with  some  form 
of  dead  organic  matter  ;  that  such  pollution 
is  possible,  and  hence,  although  at  the  moment 
of  analysis  dangerous  sewage  or  dangerous 
organic  matter  may  not  be  present,  it  may 
presumably  at  any  time  get  into  the  water 
source  again.  These  substances  are,  as  we 
say,  symptomatic  of  more  or  less  dangerous 
pollution. 


DRINKING-WATER  AND  ICE   SUPPLIES.         57 

Dead  organic  matter,  although  not  always 
harmful  in  small  quantities,  is  matter  which 
may  be  undergoing  putrefaction,  and  hence  is 
always  regarded,  when  present  in  water  in  con- 
siderable amounts,  as  an  objectionable  ingre- 
dient. 

We  cannot  enter  here  into  the  details  of 
analysis  and  conclusion  upon  which  the  chem- 
ist bases  his  judgment  of  the  character  of  a 
given  specimen  of  drinking-water,  because  this 
is  not  the  special  line  of  study  which  we  are 
following  in  this  book.  But  we  may  say  in 
brief  that  when  the  chemist  finds  in  the  water 
dead  organic  matter,  either  in  the  form  of  par- 
ticles, or  in  solution  in  considerable  quantities,, 
or  when  he  finds  such  chemical  compounds  as 
indicate  that  such  organic  matter  has  been 
there  when  it  ought  not  to  be,  his  suspicion  is 
aroused  as  to  the  salubrity  of  the  water,  and  he 
must  investigate  its  source.  If  he  finds  that  it 
comes  from  such  sources  as  indicate  a  pollution 
with  human  or  animal  waste,  the  water  must  be 
condemned,  because  the  door  is  probably,  if 
not  certainly,  open  through  which  disease-pro- 
ducing agencies  may  enter. 


58        DRINKING-WATER  AND  ICE  SUPPLIES. 

I  twill  be  seen  that  the  chemist  in  his  exam- 
inations of  water  does  not,  for  the  most  part, 
get  his  finger  upon  the  actual  causes  of  disease 
in  dangerous  water,  but  finds  only  those  tell- 
tale traces  of  materials  which  often  accompany 
disease-producing  stuff.  It  should  not  be  in- 
ferred from  this  that  the  examinations  of  the 
chemist  are  unimportant,  because  it  not  infre- 
quently happens  that  in  no  other  way  than  by 
his  analysis  can  we  get  an  indication  of  dan- 
gerous agents  in  water. 

2.  We  come  now  to  the  living  impurities  in 
water.  These  again  we  find  to  be  of  two 
classes :  first,  animals ;  and  second,  plants. 
We  speak  here,  of  course,  only  of  the  minute 
forms  of  life  in  water.  The  tiny  animals  which 
may  be  present  in  ordinary  drinking-water 
in  comparatively  small  numbers  belong  largely 
among  the  so-called  protozoa,  or  simple  forms 
of  animal  life,  and  are,  so  far  as  we  know,  of 
no  importance  whatsoever  in  their  relationship 
to  health,  and  we  need  therefore  give  no  fur- 
ther thought  to  them.  Very  impure  water  may, 
however,  contain  the  eggs  of  certain  animal 
parasites,  which  we  cannot  now  consider. 


DRINKING-WATER  AND  ICE  SUPPLIES.         59 

With  the  minute  plants,  however,  which 
water  may  contain,  the  case  is  different,  for  in 
this  group  of  living  things  are  certain  forms 
occasionally  finding  their  way  into  drinking- 
water  which  are  capable  of  inducing  serious 
and  even  fatal  disease. 

There  are  certain  moss-like  growths,  called 
algae,  which  occasionally  get  into  reservoirs  of 
water  and  grow  very  rapidly,  and  so  do  harm 
either  by  blocking  up  the  pipes  or  filling  the 
reservoirs,  or  by  a  rapid  decomposition,  which 
gives  the  water  a  very  bad  taste  or  smell  and 
so  makes  it  unfit  for  use.  These  forms  we 
will  not  further  consider. 

We  come  at  last  to  the  great  group  of  mi- 
nute plants  called  bacteria,  towards  which  our 
rapid  survey  of  this  field  has  been  leading  us. 
But  here  let  us  stop  a  moment  to  correct  a 
false  impression  which  the  name  bacteria  nearly 
always  makes  when  spoken  in  connection  with 
things  which  we  use  as  food. 

It  is  very  unfortunate  that  the  earliest 
notions  which  people  nowadays  get  of  these 
minute  living  things  should  usually  be  associ- 
ated with  their  relationship  to  disease.  So 

-T\  B  R  A  *  ? 

V  OF  THE 

UNIVERSITY 


60        DRINKING-WATER  AND  ICE   SUPPLIES. 

that  in  the  minds  of  most  people  who  have 
been  hearing  about  bacteria,  now  and  then, 
and  especially  often  quite  recently,  the  name 
bacteria  is  associated  with  some  horrid  concep- 
tion of  a  deadly  being,  like  a  bug  or  worm, 
which  burrows  or  gnaws  its  way  into  the  body 
and  works  havoc  there.  Now  the  sooner  any- 
body who  is  in  this  condition  gets  out  of  it,  the 
better  will  it  be  for  his  peace  of  mind.  For 
the  knowledge  of  these  unseen  fellow-dwellers 
with  us  on  the  earth  has  come  to  stay,  and  a 
large  part  of  the  mental  inquietude  which 
people  have  about  them  is  due  to  mistaken 
notions  as  to  their  nature  and  importance. 

Because  one  knows  that  tigers  are  ferocious, 
he  does  n't  shudder  whenever  any  member  of 
the  feline  tribe  is  mentioned.  Because  some 
plants  are  poisonous,  we  don't  think  that  we 
must  have  recourse  to  an  exclusive  meat  diet ; 
nor  need  we  when  bacteria  are  named  forth- 
with imagine  that  a  medical  theme  is  on  the 
carpet.  Of  the  thousands  of  bacteria  which 
are  teeming  everywhere  about  us,  even  in 
the  cleanest  of  inhabited  places,  it  is  but  an 
insignificant  number  whose  relationships  to 


DRINKING-WATER  AND  ICE   SUPPLIES.        6 1 

man  are  any  thing  but  beneficent  or  indif- 
ferent. 

The  species  which  do  harm  are,  so  far  as  we 
know,  very  few,  and  so  associated  with  the 
persons  or  animals  who  are  suffering  from  the 
diseases  which  they  induce  that  if  only  a 
reasonable  degree  of  intelligent  cleanliness  be 
exercised  our  risks  of  coming  in  contact  with 
them  are  very  slight  indeed.  The  fact  is  then 
that  the  sooner  we  get  a  fair  amount  of  knowl- 
edge about  these  tiny  organisms,  so  that  we 
can  incorporate  a  reasonable  cleanliness  into 
our  routine,  the  sooner  can  we  go  singing  on 
our  way  with  that  freedom  from  apprehension 
which  belonged  to  the  pre-bacterial  epoch  ;  a 
freedom,  too,  enhanced  by  the  consciousness 
that  intelligently  clean  rooms  and  houses, 
cities  and  food,  mean  a  larger  degree  of 
immunity  from  many  forms  of  serious  disease. 

It  follows  from  this  rather  long  and  rambling 
plea  for  justice  to  the  mild-mannered  members 
of  the  ubiquitous  germ  fraternity,  that  we 
need  not  be  disturbed  in  the  least  when  we 
see  in  some  book  or  journal  that  Prof.  A.  has 
found  800  germs  in  a  thimbleful  of  city  drink- 


62        DRINKING-WATER  AND  ICE   SUPPLIES. 

ing-water,  or  that  Dr.  B.  estimates  that  there 
are  at  least  a  million  in  a  schooner  of  beer. 
All  this  is  of  no  personal  significance  whatso- 
ever to  us,  except  as  a  more  or  less  interesting 
fact  in  nature,  unless — please  note  this  well— 
unless  the  aforesaid  gentlemen  show  in  their 
case  reason  to  believe  that  these  same  multi- 
tudinous waifs  belong  among  the  harmful 
members  of  the  germ  fraternity,  or  in  some 
way  foreshadow  the  actual  or  possible  presence 
of  these. 

There  are  indeed,  as  I  have  intimated,  some 
very  stern  realities  associated  with  a  few 
species  of  bacteria.  But  they  need  not  over- 
shadow existence,  even  in  crowded  towns,  if 
we  but  live  up  to  the  light  which  science  is 
throwing  wide  abroad  in  this  domain,  and  do 
not  permit  the  sanitary  affairs  of  our  municipali- 
ties to  fall  into  the  clutches  of  mercenary 
political  tricksters.  If  we  do  this  we  deserve 
such  mental  inquietude  as  will  the  sooner 
incite  us  to  compel  reform. 


CHAPTER  IX. 

THE    UNSEEN   WATER   FLORA. 

WE  return  now  to  the  bacteria  which  are 
present  in  varying  numbers  in  nearly 
all  surface  water  and  in  much  of  the  ground 
water  which  does  not  lie  buried  at  considerable 
depths. 

More  than  a  hundred  different  species  of 
bacteria  found  in  water  have  been  described. 
Many  of  these  have  been  named  and  their 
individual  life  histories  studied  out.  It 
is  a  very  curious  and  motley  group,  these 
unseen  water-dwellers,  when  we  get  them  grow- 
ing in  the  laboratory  so  that  we  can  see  them. 

A  good  many  of  them  are  mobile  and  under 
the  microscope  may  be  seen  darting  about 
wildly  and  apparently  aimlessly.  Many  of 
them  form  brilliant  colors  when  under  artificial 
cultivation.  Some  are  phosphorescent.  Many 

63 


64        DRINKING-WATER  AND  ICE   SUPPLIES. 

of  the  water  bacteria  are  lovers  of  oxygen,  and 
thus  around  air  bubbles  there  is  often  a  great 
gathering  of  the  clans.  Others  seem  to  have 
as  persistent,  not  to  say  malignant,  a  hatred  of 
oxygen  as  has  the  average  theatre  proprietor, 
and  thrive  best,  as  he  often  seems  to  do,  far 
from  this  popular  gas. 

Many  species  dread  the  light,  and  sulk  or 
pine  and  die  in  the  sun's  rays.  Almost  all 
forms  take  kindly  to  mild  temperatures,  how- 
ever, and  if  they  find  a  good  warm  nook  not 
too  sunny,  with  plenty  of  old  plant  ruins 
in  it,  they  must  be  as  happy  as  bacteria  can 
be,  in  a  world  so  largely  given  over  to  their 
betters. 

The  bacteria  are  rarely  uniformly  distributed 
through  a  mass  of  water,  the  centre  of  popu- 
lation constantly  changing.  In  lakes  and 
ponds  there  are  more,  as  a  rule,  near  the 
shores  than  in  the  central  deeper  parts,  very 
likely  because  near  the  shores  there  is  more 
food  and  usually  a  more  congenial  temperature. 
The  currents  in  rivers,  however,  largely  over- 
weigh  the  individual  preferences  of  the  germs 
as  to  their  locations.  They  are,  as  a  rule, 


DRINKING-WATER  AND  ICE  SUPPLIES.        65 

considerably  more  abundant  in  most  waters 
in  summer  time  than  in  winter. 

Very  few  of  them  when  present  in  the 
moderate  numbers  which  are  found  in  clean 
natural  waters  produce  ill  effects  when  taken 
into  the  body  in  drinking-water.  They  are  of 
no  more  significance  as  articles  of  consumption, 
because  they  are  alive,  than  are  the  tiny  living 
cells  which  make  up  in  myriads  all  of  the  fresh 
vegetable  foods  which  we  consume.  So  there 
is  no  intrinsic  reason  whatsoever  why  one 
should  be  more  sensitive  about  the  few  thou- 
sands of  living  bacterial  cells  which  he  may  take 
into  his  system  in  a  glass  of  water,  than  he  is 
about  the  thousands  of  living  cells  which  he 
consumes  when  he  eats  an  apple  or  a  plate 
of  salad. 

There  are  certain  species  of  bacteria  which 
seem  especially  to  belong  in  water,  for  we  find 
them  in  natural  water  from  the  most  widely 
separated  parts  of  the  earth.  Many  forms 
grow  readily,  and  multiply  with  incredible 
rapidity  in  the  purest  of  water,  producing  in  a 
short  time  such  enormous  numbers  that  it  is 
difficult  to  see  where  they  get  material  enough 


66       DRINKING-WATER  AND  ICE   SUPPLIES. 

to  feed  upon.  Such  forms  are  called  par 
excellence  "  water  bacteria."  It  appears  that 
many  forms  are  cannibals,  consuming  the 
bodies  of  their  defunct  brethren. 

One  very  naturally  questions  how  it  is  that 
bacteria  get  into  so  many  natural  waters,  since 
the  cloud  water  does  not  contain  them,  and  the 
deep,  well  filtered  ground  water  is  largely  free. 

Moderate  numbers  of  germs  are,  as  we 
have  seen,  caught  from  the  floating  dust  in 
the  rain-drops  as  they  fall,  and  these  in  regions 
where  there  is  not  good  ground  filtration  may 
stay  there  until  the  water  is  collected  in 
streams  and  lakes.  Then  the  soil,  whose 
superficial  layers  are,  as  we  have  seen,  usually 
swarming  with  them,  is  washed  off  more  or  less 
from  the  shores  into  streams  and  lakes  by 
rains,  and  large  numbers  are  often  set  free  by 
erosion  of  the  banks.  The  soil  is  thus,  on  the 
one  hand,  the  great  purifier  of  water  from  its 
bacterial  ingredients  by  filtration  ;  and,  on  the 
other,  is  one  of  the  great  suppliers  of  them 
from  the  banks  of  still  or  running  reservoirs. 

In  settled  regions  human  habitations  and 
certain  industries  form  one  of  the  greatest  and 


DRINKING-WATER  AND  ICE   SUPPLIES.        6/ 

most  significant  sources  of  the  bacterial  im- 
purities of  water,  since,  as  we  have  already 
seen,  sewage  and  other  bacteria-laden  waste  is 
very  apt  to  be  run  off  into  the  great  natural 
sources  of  water  supply.  We  see  at  once  that 
human  and  animal  waste,  especially  the  former, 
furnishes  the  most  significant  source  of  bac- 
terial water  pollution,  because  in  this  we  are 
most  apt  to  have  the  species  of  bacteria  which 
have  caused  disease,  and  may  again,  if  they 
but  gain  access  to  the  bodies  of  the  water 
consumers. 

When  men  first  began  to  study  the  bacteria 
systematically  by  the  new  technique,  every- 
body thought,  just  as  most  people  do  still,  that 
as  serious  disease  could  be  caused  by  bacteria, 
the  presence  of  germs  of  all  kinds  in  water, 
even  in  moderate  numbers,  might  be  of  sani- 
tary importance.  But  since  we  have  learned 
to  discriminate  between  harmful  and  harmless 
species,  and  since  we  have  learned  that  a  cer- 
tain number  fairly  belong  in  water,  our  views 
as  to  their  significance  have  materially  changed. 
We  no  longer  ask  whether  there  are  any  bac- 
teria in  a  given  specimen  of  drinking-water,  but 


68        DRINKING-WATER  AND  ICE  SUPPLIES. 

whether  there  are  so  many  and  of  such  forms 
as  to  justify  the  suspicion  that  there  has  been 
a  pollution  of  the  water  from  a  source  which 
could  furnish  the  dangerous  kinds. 

It  is,  however,  probable  that  exceedingly 
large  numbers  of  the  ordinarily  harmless  species 
may  in  especially  sensitive  -persons,  such  as 
young  children,  give  rise  to  important  dis- 
orders of  the  digestive  system.  But  of  this 
we  know  too  little  yet  to  speak  very  definitely. 


CHAPTER  X. 

A   WATER    CENSUS. 

IT  will  thus  be  evident  that  it  is  of  a  good 
deal  of  importance  to  find  out  by  a  bac- 
terial analysis  of  the  greatest  variety  of  natural 
waters,  from  the  most  varied  regions,  what,  on 
the  whole,  is  to  be  considered  as  a  fair  num- 
ber of  these  germs  which  water  may  contain 
and  still  be  regarded  as  salubrious.  In  other 
words,  it  is  desirable  to  establish  what  may  be 
called  the  bacterial  norm  of  good  drinking- 
water. 

Now  this  might  be  thought  a  very  simple 
matter,  requiring  only  a  diligent  examination 
of  water  from  all  possible  sources.  And  such 
at  first  it  was  deemed  to  be.  But  very  soon 
after  scientific  men  got  to  work  in  this  field, 
difficulties  began  to  crop  out  which  made  the 
problem  seem  a  more  and  more  complex  one. 

69 


70        DRINKING-WATER  AND  ICE   SUPPLIES. 

It  was  found  that  many  deep  springs  and  wells 
and  many  mountain  streams  and  some  lakes 
were  practically  germ-free.  On  the  other 
hand,  it  was  shown  that  not  infrequently 
springs  and  wells  and  streams  whose  water,  by 
experience  and  from  inspection,  appeared  of 
the  best  quality,  might  contain  a  good  many 
living  germs.  The  influence  of  stagnation  and 
temperature  and  exposure  to  air  and  light,  and 
many  other  factors,  must,  it  would  seem,  be 
taken  into  the  account. 

A  series  of  examinations  of  the  water  in 
Paris  by  Miquel  gave  the  following  interesting 
results.  The  rain-water  in  a  park  just  outside 
of  the  city  contained,  on  the  average,  4  living 
bacteria  to  a  cubic  centimetre  (that  is,  to  about 
one  third  of  a  teaspoonful).  The  rain-water 
in  the  city  contained  17.  The  water  of  the 
Seine,  just  above  Paris,  contained  300  bacte- 
ria, while  within  the  city,  after  receiving  the 
contents  of  the  sewers,  there  were  200,000,  to 
one  cubic  centimetre.  The  river  water,  which 
had  been  used  in  the  floating  laundries,  which 
form  such  familiar  features  along  the  banks 
of  the  Seine,  in  Paris,  was  found  to  contain 


DRINKING-WATER  AND  ICE  SUPPLIES.        fl 

26,000,000  living  germs  to  one  cubic  centi- 
metre. 

The  river  Spree,  which  runs  through  the 
city  of  Berlin,  was  found  on  one  occasion  to 
contain  above  the  city  82,000  germs,  while 
below  it  showed  10,180,000,  to  one  cubic  cen- 
timetre. These  figures  show  what  the  bac- 
terial contents  of  greatly  polluted  rivers  may 
be. 

On  the  other  hand,  the  river  Rhone,  at  the 
point  from  which  the  Geneva  water  supply  is 
taken,  has  been  found  to  contain  only  from 
24  to  75  bacteria  to  one  cubic  centimetre. 

The  Hudson  River  water  above  Albany  was 
found  to  contain  on  two  occasions  a  little  over 
2,000  bacteria  to  one  cubic  centimetre. 

The  Potomac  River  water  at  Washington 
has  been  found  by  Smith  to  contain,  at  vari- 
ous seasons  of  the  year,  all  the  way  from  75 
to  3,774  bacteria  to  a  cubic  centimetre. 

Unpolluted  streams  and  lakes  contain,  as  a 
rule,  very  much  smaller  numbers  of  germs 
than  those  which  have  been  mentioned. 

The  writer  has  made  a  series  of  several 
hundreds  of  bacterial  analyses  of  the  unfil- 


72        DRINKING-WATER  AND  ICE  SUPPLIES. 

tered  Croton  water,  as  delivered  through  the 
pipes  in  the  city  of  New  York,  at  all  months 
in  the  year  except  June,  July,  and  August, 
extending  from  1886  to  1890.  The  highest 
numbers  of  bacteria  are  almost  invariably 
found  after  rains  or  the  melting  of  the  snow 
in  the  spring,  and  more  recently,  after  the 
commencement  of  the  use  of,  or  after  changes 
in,  the  new  aqueduct.  The  largest  number 
ever  found  was  1,950  to  one  cubic  centimetre; 
the  lowest,  20.  Counting  up  the  results  of  all 
the  analyses  of  the  Croton  made  during  this 
period,  the  average  number,  up  to  December, 
1890,  is  319. 

The  number  of  bacteria  in  the  ordinary  well 
waters  varies  a  great  deal,  both  with  and  with- 
out evidences  of  gross  pollution.  In  some 
regions  there  are  always  more  than  in  others. 
The  freedom  of  well  waters  from  bacteria  de- 
pends primarily  upon  the  efficiency  of  the 
natural  filtration  and  the  resulting  purity  of 
the  ground  water.  But  if  the  water  is  stag- 
nant, so  that  the  bacteria  which  naturally  live 
in  water  can  increase  in  number,  and  very  lit- 
tle is  drawn  out  ;  if  contaminations  are  allowed 


DRINKING-WATER  AND  ICE   SUPPLIES.       73 

to  enter  from  the  sides  or  top  of  the  well,  the 
number  of  germs  will,  as  would  be  expected, 
be  usually  large. 

The  effect  of  drawing  out  large  volumes  of 
water  from  a  well  and  allowing  it  to  refill  from 
the  ground  supply  is  often  very  remarkable  in 
reducing  for  a  time  the  number  of  the  bac- 
teria. This  is  because  the  incoming  water  is 
filtered  ground  water.  But  if  an  examination 
of  the  water  which  enters  the  well  immedi- 
ately after  the  old  bacteria-laden  supply  has 
been  drawn  shows  large  numbers  of  germs, 
the  inference  is  justified  that  the  ground  water 
is  impure. 

Many  thousands  of  analyses  of  all  sorts  of 
water  have  been  made,  and,  on  the  whole,  we 
feel  that  we  can  say  that  good,  unpolluted 
natural  waters  may  contain,  on  the  average,  all 
the  way  from  none  to  five  hundred  bacteria  to 
one  cubic  centimetre.  If  there  are  more  than 
this,  it  becomes  desirable  to  look  into  the 
sources  of  the  water  and  see  if  we  can  account 
for  the  excess  by  any  unobjectionable  natural 
conditions.  If  we  can,  a  few  hundreds,  more 
or  less,  does  not  seem  to  be  of  serious  import. 


74        DRINKING-WATER  AND  ICE   SUPPLIES. 

But,  on  the  other  hand,  if  the  study  of  the 
water  sources  to  which  our  analyses  have  di- 
rected us  show  us  a  possibility  of  explaining 
the  excess  by  a  direct  or  indirect  pollution 
with  sewage  or  other  human  or  animal  waste, 
then  the  water  must  be  condemned,  for  at  such 
pollution  the  line  must  be  drawn  at  all  hazards, 
if  we  would  avoid  the  possibility  or  proba- 
bility of  incurring  bacterial  disease.  Nay, 
more  than  this.  Though  at  the  moment  of 
examination  the  water  be  as  free  from  germs 
as  cloud  vapor  itself,  if  it  is  found  to  be  pol- 
luted by  sewage  or  other  human  or  animal 
waste,  it  should  be  condemned  out  of  hand. 
That  way  danger  lies. 

The  opinion  which  the  bacteriologist  forms 
of  water  after  its  analysis  depends,  however, 
not  alone  on  the  number  of  living  germs  which 
it  contains,  but  also  on  the  variety  of  species 
which  are  present.  This  is  important,  because 
it  often  happens  that  the  simple  multiplication 
in  water  of  the  harmless  "  water  bacteria '' 
may  give  rise  to  large  numbers  of  one  or  two 
harmless  species.  But  in  sewer  water  and  in 
human  and  animal  waste  there  are  usually 


DRINKING-WATER  AND  ICE   SUPPLIES.        75 

many  different  species,  so  that  a  water  which 
contains  many  forms  of  bacteria  may  be  more 
indicative  of  serious  pollution  than  one  which 
contains  more  germs  of  one  or  few  kinds. 

But,  it  may  be  asked,  does  not  water  purify 
itself  after  a  while  in  large  lakes  or  in  running 
streams,  so  that  though  at  some  points  con- 
siderable pollution  takes  place,  at  others  in 
the  same  source  it  may  be  free  from  danger  ? 
There  is  no  doubt  that  there  is  such  a  thing 
as  natural  or  spontaneous  purification  of  sew- 
age-polluted water,  apart  from  filtration  in  the 
soil  or  aerial  evaporation.  But  we  should  be 
very  guarded  in  our  confidence  in  the  extent  to 
which  this  occurs,  at  least  until  we  know  more 
definitely  about  it. 

A  good  deal  of  the  current  belief  as  to 
the  so-called  spontaneous  purification  of  water 
rests  upon  the  facts  which  were  gathered  from 
chemical  examinations  before  we  knew  of  the 
significance,  or  even  the  existence,  of  bacteria 
in  water,  and  before  we  knew  of  the  relation- 
ship between  certain  bacteria  and  disease.  The 
chemists  found,  indeed,  that  in  water  which 
contained  large  amounts  of  objectionable  or- 


76        DRINKING-WATER  AND  ICE   SUPPLIES. 

ganic  matter  from  sewage  poured  into  a  run- 
ning stream,  this  might  practically  disappear 
after  exposure  to  the  air  and  other  influences. 
But  even  their  most  delicate  analyses  are  too 
crude  to  take  cognizance  of  the  bacteria,  which, 
after  all,  are  of  the  greatest  practical  signifi- 
cance. The  bacteria  are  living  things,  and  it 
is  n't  always  necessary  to  have  a  fixed  amount, 
or  number,  of  them  to  produce  disease,  when 
other  conditions  are  favorable,  as  it  is  with 
poisons  which  are  not  self-propagating. 

Dilution  of  sewage,  of  course,  diminishes,  in 
direct  proportion  to  its  amount,  the  chances  of 
the  consumer  of  the  water  getting  any  of  the 
dangerous  germs.  But  that  leaves  an  un- 
pleasant possibility  of  evil,  and  does  not  re- 
move the  essential  filthiness  of  the  condition. 

In  fact,  it  may  be  said  in  general  that  the 
number  of  bacteria  in  sewage-polluted  streams 
does  diminish  in  one  way  or  another,  which 
we  have  not  the  space  to  go  into  here,  as  the 
water  flows  farther  and  farther  from  the  pol- 
luting source.  But,  on  the  whole,  considering 
the  possible  danger  and  the  absolute  filthi- 
ness of  drinking  even  diluted  sewage,  the  only 


DRINKING-WATER  AND  ICE  SUPPLIES.        77 

rational  course,  as  it  seems  to  the  writer,  is 
either  to  prevent  the  entrance  of  sewage  into 
sources  of  water-supply,  by  stringent  legal  en- 
actments, or,  if  this  cannot  be  wholly  done,  to 
adopt  for  such  waters  some  artificial  methods 
of  purification  on  the  large  scale.  Of  these 
we  shall  speak  presently. 


CHAPTER   XI. 

SOME  WAYS  OF   GETTING  WATER. 

THE  ways  in  which  water  is  stored  and 
distributed  on  a  large  scale  for  use  in 
towns,  we  shall  not  dwell  upon  here,  because 
this  book  is  designed  rather  for  the  individual 
householder  than  for  those  intrusted  with  the 
interests  of  many  people.  We  will,  in  fact, 
consider  only  the  means  by  which  people  gain 
access  to  the  ground-water  supplies,  because 
this,  after  all,  is  the  greatest  and  most  wide- 
spread source. 

First,  a  glance  at  springs.  There  is  a  gen- 
eral impression,  most  fondly  cherished,  that 
wherever  water  runs  out  of  the  earth  on  to  the 
surface  it  is  pure  and  wholesome.  This  is  in 
many  cases  true,  in  many  cases  wholly  false. 
We  have  seen  that  spring  water  is  in  general 
just  the  same  thing  as  ground  water,  only  it 

78 


DRINKING-WATER  AND  ICE   SUPPLIES.        79 

makes  its  appearance  at  the  surface  in  natural 
springs,  without  being  dug  for.  Spring  water 
then  is  exposed  to  the  same  contaminating 
and  the  same  purifying  agencies  as  other 
ground  water.  We  do  not  now  speak  of  min- 
eral and  hot  springs,  which  may  have  origin 
very  deep  in  the  earth,  and  draw  their  sup- 
plies from  far-distant  and  complex  sources. 

We  must  remember  that  there  is  no  especial 
mystery  about  the  water  which  we  dig  for  in 
the  earth  or  which  gushes  up  spontaneously  in 
the  ordinary  springs.  It  may  come  to  us,  in- 
deed, clear,  sparkling,  cool,  out  of  the  dark 
recesses  of  the  earth,  as  if  new-created  for  our 
use,  but  it  is  mostly  the  same  old  water  which 
shared  in  the  rainbow's  arches,  pattered  on  the 
leaves,  or  swept  the  surface  of  the  ground  in 
torrents — yesterday,  last  week,  last  month, 
last  year.  In  the  great  alembic  it  has  been 
purified  and  perhaps,  indeed,  partly  re-created 
out  of  elemental  combinations,  torn  apart  in 
the  recesses  of  the  soil. 

In  uninhabited  regions,  in  the  forests, 
wherever  excessive  contaminations  of  the  soil 
with  human  or  animal  or  manufacturing  waste 


80        DRINKING-WATER  AND  ICE  SUPPLIES. 

do  not  occur,  we  may  fairly  assume  that  the 
ground  water  from  springs  is  wholesome  and 
one  of  the  best  forms  in  which  we  can  get  it. 
But  the  moment  we  introduce  human  habita- 
tions, with  their  multitudinous  forms  of  waste, 
with  their  soiled  cleansing-water  with  their 
animal  attaches,  all  pouring  filth  into  the  soil 
in  limited  areas,  it  frequently  happens  that  the 
balance  is  destroyed  and  the  ground  water 
becomes  contaminated,  not  only  with  organic 
matter  of  unwholesome  character,  but  may 
become  bacteria-laden  as  well. 

When  such  not  only  unpurified  but  actually 
contaminated  ground  water  gushes  out  in  the 
form  of  a  spring,  it  is  often  used  by  otherwise 
very  sensible  people,  although  it  may  not  look 
very  good  and  may  taste  very  bad,  just  because 
it  is  spring  water ;  and  spring  water,  as  they 
have  been  taught,  must  be  good  water.  Now 
when  any  such  condition  as  this  is  suspected, 
it  is  n't  always  necessary  to  run  to  the  chemist 
or  to  the  bacteriologist  to  have  an  analysis 
made.  A  careful  inspection  of  the  surround- 
ings of  the  spring ;  an  attentive  study  of  the 
probable  source  of  the  water  which  comes  to 


DRINKING-WATER  AND  ICE  SUPPLIES.       8l 

the  light  here ;  an  heroic  effort  to  get  out  of 
the  thrall  of  the  word  spring,  and  a  moderate 
use  of  common-sense  will,  in  nine  cases  out  of 
ten,  do  more  to  set  the  spring's  owner  or  user 
right  as  to  its  merits  or  demerits,  than  would 
the  analyses  of  the  whole  Faculty. 

One  great  difficulty  with  springs  in  inhabited 
regions  is  that  they  are  not  properly  protected 
from  surface  contaminations. 

Let  us  now  turn  to  those  means  by  which 
the  concealed  ground  water  is  brought  to  light 
in  what  are  called  wells.  The  typical  old- 
fashioned  well  almost  everybody  is  familiar 
with,  especially  in  the  older  parts  of  this 
country.  A  deep  hole  is  dug  in  the  ground, 
in  what  seems  to  the  local  expert  a  promising 
region,  or,  as  is  most  often  the  case,  at  as  short 
a  distance  as  practicable  from  the  house  and 
barn  and  other  necessary  outhouses.  When 
water  is  struck — that  is,  when  the  diggers 
have  got  down  to  the  ground  water,  the  sides 
of  the  hole  are  stoned  or  bricked  up,  a  plat- 
form is  laid,  and  a  curb  with  some  sort  of 
hoisting  apparatus  is  placed  around  theopening* 

More  recently  it  is  often  found  better  to 


82        DRINKING-WATER  AND  ICE   SUPPLIES. 

drive  an  iron  tube,  a  few  inches  in  diameter, 
down  through  the  soil  layers  until  the  ground 
water  is  reached.  The  tube  has  a  solid  point 
to  pierce  the  soil  as  it  goes  down,  and  at  its 
lower  end  is  a  series  of  small  openings  through 
which  the  ground  water  can  enter  the  tube. 
The  water  is  drawn  out  of  the  tube  by  a  pump. 
These  are  called  driven  wells.  See  Fig.  3. 

When  a  large  amount  of  water  is  to  be 
drawn  from  the  ground-water  supply,  a  series 
of  large  perforated  pipes  are  often  laid  down 
in  the  soil  below  the  level  of  the  ground  water. 
These  all  communicate  with  a  great  central 
tube  or  chamber,  from  which  the  water  is 
pumped  as  it  flows  in  from  the  numerous 
feeders  radiating  off  in  all  directions. 

All  of  these  forms  of  wells  are,  as  will  be 
seen,  simply  means  of  draining  the  ground 
water  into  open  spaces  in  the  soil  from  which 
it  may  be  readily  raised.  All  properly  con- 
structed wells  are  so  situated  that  the  soil 
forms  a  great  natural  filter  about  them,  and 
upon  the  maintenance  of  this  soil-filter  in  per- 
fect working  order  depends  the  purity  of  the 
water  obtained. 


FlG,  3. — A  DRIVEN  WELL. 
83 


84        DRINKING-WATER  AND  ICE   SUPPLIES. 

Now  the  purity  of  the  water  derived  in  all 
of  these  forms  of  wells  from  the  ground  water 
depends,  so  far  as  external  contaminations  are 
concerned,  upon  several  things. 

In  the  first  place,  the  water  which  trickles 
down  through  the  soil  from  the  surface  must 
not  be  so  extraordinarily  dirty,  or  in  such 
large  quantity,  and  the  cleansing  layers  of  soil 
must  not  be  so  thin  that  the  water  will  not  be 
well  purified  by  natural  filtration  by  the  time 
it  reaches  the  ground-water  reservoirs.  If  in 
the  case  of  an  individual  well,  either  dug  or 
driven,  the  cesspools  and  the  outhouses  and 
the  barns  are  situated  so  near  the  zone  of 
soil  drained  by  the  well,  that  a  proper  filtration 
of  the  variously  polluted  water  cannot  occur, 
then  the  well  water  cannot  be  expected  to  be 
wholesome. 

In  the  second  place,  while  the  ground- water 
supply  coming  in  to  the  well  at  or  near  its  bot- 
tom may  be  good  and  pure,  it  very  often  hap- 
pens, especially  in  the  old-fashioned  dug  and 
stoned  wells,  that  channels  of  communication 
are  in  the  course  of  time  established  between 
the  contaminated  surfaces  of  the  ground  about 


DRINKING-WATER  AND  ICE  SUPPLIES.       8$ 

the  well  and  the  well  itself,  so  that  instead  of 
being  filtered,  as  it  should  be,  slowly  through 
considerable  layers  of  soil,  the  surface  water 
runs  in  at  the  sides  between  the  stones  at  the 
upper  part  of  the  well,  or  even  runs  over  the 
top  edges  directly  in. 

We  want  water  for  domestic  use,  just  for  the 
purpose  of  soiling  it  in  the  various  processes 
of  cleaning.  It  thus  often  happens,  especially 
in  the  country,  that  a  good  deal  of  this  soiling 
of  water  occurs  very  near  the  well,  because  in 
this  way  laborious  carrying  of  the  water  is 
avoided.  The  soiled  water  is  then  either 
poured  on  to  the  ground  close  to  the  mouth  of 
the  well,  or  is  carried  but  a  short  distance 
away  to  be  emptied.  The  consequence  of  this 
is  that  the  dirty  water  either  runs  in  part 
directly  back  into  the  well  again,  or  the  soil 
for  many  feet  about  the  well  becomes  gradu- 
ally permeated  with  filth  and  no  longer  dis- 
poses, as  it  should,  of  the  impurities  soaking 
down  towards  the  ground  water,  or  more  di- 
rectly towards  the  well,  after  rains  or  after 
the  deluging  of  the  surface  with  fresh  dirty 
water. 


86        DRINKING-WATER  AND  ICE  SUPPLIES. 

Finally,  the  open  wells  with  a  curb  and  a 
bucket,  oaken  or  moss-covered  though  it  be, 
permit  a  good  deal  of  contamination  of  the 
well  water  from  settling  dust  and  from  all  sorts 
and  conditions  of  things  accidentally  falling 
into  it,  or  from  the  handling  of  the  bucket 
with  dirty  hands.  The  coolness  of  the  well, 
furthermore,  often  leads  to  its  use  as  a  re- 
frigerator. Various  kinds  of  food  are  lowered 
down  towards  the  water,  and  not  infrequently 
organic  materials  are  spilled  into  it,  which 
tend  to  make  it  a  good  culture  medium  for 
germs. 

These  considerations  lead  to  a  few  precau- 
tionary sentences,  which  I  shall  ask  the  printer 
to  emphasize. 

Wells  should  not  be  dug  in  or  near  places 
where  there  is  an  unusual  contamination  of 
the  soil  with  human  or  animal  waste. 

The  surface  of  the  ground  for  a  few  feet 
about  the  top  of  the  well  should  be  raised 
some  inches  above  the  general  level ;  should 
slope  away  from  the  edge  of  the  well,  and  be 


DRINKING-WATER  AND  ICE   SUPPLIES.        8/ 

covered  with  water-tight  cement  or  with  bricks 
or  stones  cemented  together,  so  that  water 
from  the  surface  cannot  pass  directly  into  the 
well  at  or  near  its  mouth.  There  should  be  a 
separate  drain  to  carry  off  the  waste  water. 

The  lining  of  the  well,  either  brick  or  stone, 
should  be  cemented  water-tight  on  all  sides 
from  the  top  to  the  bottom,  so  that  all  the 
water  which  enters  may  have  passed  through 
considerable  thicknesses  of  soil. 

The  mouth  of  the  well  should  be  covered, 
to  prevent  foreign  contaminating  substances 
falling  into  the  water,  and  for  this  reason, 
when  it  is  practicable,  it  is  better  to  use  a 
pump  than  a  bucket  for  drawing  the  water. 

Finally,  anybody  found  emptying  dirty  water 
or  other  foul  material  on  to  the  surface  or  into 
pits  in  the  soil  near  the  well  should — be  he 
male  or  female — be  subject  to  such  domestic 
discipline  or  temporary  disgrace  as  will  call 
attention  to  the  heinousness  of  his  offence. 

Fig.  4,  which  is  copied  from  a  drawing  by 
Hueppe,  shows  the  proper  construction  and 


88        DRINKING-WATER  AND  ICE  SUPPLIES. 

surroundings  of  an  ordinary  shallow  well.  To 
indicate  that  either  material  may  be  used,  the 
well  is  represented  as  bricked  on  one  side  and 
stoned  on  the  other.  As  the  flat  stone  cover- 


Vtnt 


FlG.  4. — SKETCH  OF  A  MODEL  WELL. 

ing  the  top  is  tightly  cemented  to  the  stone- 
or  brick-work  of  the  well  and  sealed  tightly  to 
the  pump-house,  a  vent  is  made  around  the 
pump-shaft  and  another  at  the  top,  covered 


DRINKING-WATER  AND  ICE  SUPPLIES.       89 

with  a  fine  wire  netting.  It  will  be  seen  that 
in  this  well  all  the  water  must  enter  from  the 
bottom,  and  will  under  all  circumstances  be 
secure  from  contaminations  coming  in  from 
the  immediate  vicinity  of  the  well. 

The  writer  is  conscious  that  just  about  here 
some  disgusted  householder  is  ready  to  pounce 
upon  him,  upbraiding  him  for  destroying  his 
peace  of  mind,  and  demanding  why,  then,  in 
the  name  of  all  the  worshippers  at  Hygeia's 
shrine,  have  not  we  well-water  drinkers  died 
off  long  ago  ?  What  can  we  do  with  the 
household  waste,  if  we  must  not  hide  it  out  of 
sight  in  the  purlieus  of  our  dooryards  ?  How 
far  must  the  barnyards  and  cesspools  and 
vaults  be  from  the  well  to  ensure  for  them  the 
sanction  of  these  new  impertinent  sanitary 
crusaders  ? 

In  the  calm  which  we  hope  will  usher  in  the 
next  chapter  we  will  consider  together  some 
facts  which  bear  upon  these  irate  queries,  and 
then  endeavor  to  quell  the  perturbed  spirit 
which  we  imagine  to  have  just  spoken  here. 


CHAPTER  XII. 

SOME  LOOSE  ENDS  GATHERED  UP. 

WE  have  already  seen  that,  so  far  as  we 
yet  know,  it  is  but  a  very  few  of  the 
bacteria  which  can  cause  harm  to  man.  When 
we  look  over  the  known  disease-producing 
forms,  we  find  that  it  is  but  a  small  proportion 
even  of  these  which  are  especially  liable  to  be 
present  in  water. 

We  will  now  leave  out  of  the  account  those 
forms  of  germs  which,  though  ordinarily  harm- 
less, may,  when  present  in  large  numbers, 
cause  health  disturbances  in  sensitive  or  very 
young  persons,  because  we  don't  yet  know 
very  much  about  them  and  their  life  history. 
We  will  leave  out  of  the  account,  too,  those 
forms  of  disease-producing  germs,  which,  as 
we  conjecture  but  cannot  yet  prove,  occasion- 
ally cause  harm  by  getting  into  drinking-water, 

90 


DRINKING-WATER  AND  ICE  SUPPLIES.        9! 

— such  as  the  germs  of  diphtheria  and  blood- 
poisoning  and  malaria. 

When,  now  we  take  account  of  stock,  we 
find  that  we  have  left  two  species  of  germs 
which  we  not  only  know  can  cause  disease,  but 
which  have  been  repeatedly  detected  in  pol- 
luted drinking-water.  These  are  the  bacteria 
of  Asiatic  cholera  and  of  typhoid  fever. 

Thanks  to  the  discovery  of  the  germ  of  Asi- 
atic cholera  by  Dr.  Robert  Koch,  and  the  pre- 
ventive measures  which  have  been  based  upon 
our  knowledge  of  its  life  history,  the  chances 
are  slight  that  the  reader  of  this  page  will  ever 
be  exposed  to  serious  danger  from  its  ravages, 
so  that  we  may  dismiss  that  germ  too,  with 
the  single  remark  that  the  precautions  which 
we  must  take  to  ward  off  the  typhoid  fever 
germ  from  our  water  supplies  are  equally 
applicable  to  the  cholera  germ. 

Now  at  last  we  have  at  bay  the  actual 
enemy,  which  in  the  present  stage  of  science 
seems  the  most  formidable  in  connection  with 
the  pollution  of  water,  namely,  the  Bacillus 
typhosus, — the  cause  and  the  only  cause  of 
typhoid  fever.  Let  us  look  at  this  fellow,  so 


92        DRINKING-WATER  AND  ICE   SUPPLIES. 

prominent  a  figure  in  our  bacterial  rogues' 
gallery,  for  in  him  this  cyclone  of  water  sani- 
tation is  largely  centred. 

It  is  a  short  rather  plump  bacillus,  very 
agile  when  swimming  free  in  fluids,  capable  of 
rapid  multiplication  when  under  favorable  con- 
ditions, and  hardy  too,  unfortunately,  so  that 
it  survives  many  serious  vicissitudes  of  heat 
and  cold,  of  drought  and  flood,  with  compara- 
tive nonchalance.  It  thrives  under  artificial 
cultivation  in  the  laboratory,  and,  so  far  as  we 
know,  is  found  nowhere  in  nature  except  in 
the  bodies  of  persons  ill  with  typhoid  fever,  or 
in  the  waste  material  from  such  persons,  which 
may  get  on  to  articles  of  food  or  into  water. 
The  typhoid  bacillus  can  remain  alive  for  a  good 
while,  and  even  for  a  time  may  multiply,  in 
pure  water.  But  after  a  while  it  dies  off,  un- 
less it  have  more  appropriate  food  than  ordi- 
nary water  furnishes.  On  the  whole,  it  does 
not  get  along  well  in  mixture  with  other  and 
putrefactive  germs.  As  we  shall  see  later,  it 
can  resist  considerable  degrees  of  cold. 

Such  is  the  portrait  and  pedigree  of  the 
typhoid  bacillus.  The  way  in  which  it  induces 


DRINKING-WATER  AND  ICE   SUPPLIES.        93 

disease  when  it  gets  into  the  bodies  of  men 
we  need  not  consider  now.  It  should,  how- 
ever, be  said  that  we  do  not  know  how  many 
of  the  individual  germs  are  necessary  to  set 
up  the  disease,  nor  do  we  know  those  condi- 
tions of  the  body  which  seem  to  predispose  it 
to  the  incursions  of  the  germs  when  once  they 
do  find  a  lodgment  in  it.  We  believe  that 
these  conservative  powers  of  the  body,  which 
enable  it  to  combat  various  deleterious  agen- 
cies, are  at  some  times  more  effective  than  at 
others.  But  this  is  a  field  yet  to  be  explored. 

The  constancy  of  the  supply  of  water  from 
a  well  is,  of  course,  dependent  upon  the  extent 
and  permanence  of  the  ground-water  supply 
of  the  region.  Some  wells  penetrate  the  soil 
in  a  locality  where  the  ground  water  is  always 
present  in  abundance.  Others  are  dependent, 
not  upon  a  permanent  accumulation,  but  upon 
an  underground  stream  slowly  working  its  way 
through  the  soil  to  a  lower  level.  Such  wells 
as  the  latter  may  be  simply  deep-lying  cisterns, 
which  catch  the  ground  water  flowing  over 
them,  and  dry  up  when  this  ceases.  Such  a 


n    ) 

•   ,  •  iv 


. 

J      - 


DRINKING-WATER  AND  ICE   SUPPLIES.       95 

well  is  shown  in  Fig.  5.  The  ground  water 
here  does  not  form  a  collection,  but  is  slowly 
flowing  along  the  rock  surface  from  left  to 
right  through  the  gravel,  and  a  portion  of  it  is 
caught  in  the  pit  dug  in  the  rock  at  the  bottom 
of  the  well.  This  picture  shows  also  that  the 
situation  of  the  well-curb  at  a  higher  level  than 
the  near  sources  of  contamination  of  the  water 
does  not  necessarily  indicate  that  the  well  water 
is  pure. 

It  will  thus  be  seen  that  the  direction  of 
flow  of  the  ground  water  is  an  extremely  im- 
portant matter  for  consideration  when  one  is 
locating  a  well  in  regions  not  far  removed  from 
abundant  soil  contaminations. 

We  now  come  to  the  explanation  of  the 
presence  among  the  living  of  our  irate  friend 
of  the  last  chapter,  who,  as  we  suspect,  felt 
guilty  of  the  crime  of  permitting  well  and 
sewer  contiguity,  and  attempted  a  game  of 
bluff  in  demanding  why  in  all  reason,  if  we 
spoke  the  truth  about  wells,  he  was  alive,  he 
whose  fathers  and  grandfathers  as  well  as 
himself  had  always  drunk  water  from  open 


96        DRINKING-WATER  AND  ICE   SUPPLIES. 

wells  and  out  of  the  bucket  too,  and  thrown 
the  house  waste  just  where  they  chose. 

We  are  disposed  to  say  to  him  for  answer, 
venerable  friend — there  are  indications  in  his 
tone  that  he  may  be  getting  on  in  years — 
venerable  friend,  if  your  cesspool  and  your 
barnyard  and  your  necessary  out-buildings  are 
so  near  your  well  that  the  fluids  from  them  may 
pass  into  the  well  without  adequate  natural 
filtration,  or  can  pass  unpurified  into  the 
ground-water  reservoir  which  supplies  your 
well ;  or  if  you  allow  waste  and  dirty  water  to 
be  thrown  away  near  the  opening  of  your  well 
without  a  proper  construction  of  the  well's 
lining  and  top,  you  would  be  a  great  deal 
better  occupied  than  in  asking  such  questions, 
if  you  were  down  on  your  knees,  returning 
thanks  to  an  overruling  Providence,  which  may 
have  ordered  it  that  among  all  the  myriads 
of  filthy  and  filth-breeding  germs  which  have 
been  swarming  in  your  well  perhaps  for  years, 
none  of  those  particular  forms  have  come 
which  cause  typhoid  fever.  Or,  if  the  powers 
which  rule  over  the  destinies  even  of  unsanitary 
people  have  not  thought  you  worth  that  pro- 


DRINKING-WATER  AND  ICE   SUPPLIES.        97 

tection,  it  may  be  that  your  inherited  robust- 
ness, or  your  acquired  vigor,  or  your  love  for 
cider  or  some  other  beverage  than  water,  may 
have  protected  you  from  ill,  even  though  the 
danger  germs  have  found  their  way  to  that 
pit  full  of  ground  and  sewer  water,  which  you 
call  your  well.  Some  of  these,  I  think,  are 
the  reasons  why  you  are  alive,  and  it  is  to  be 
hoped  that  you  are  alive  enough  to  reform. 

What  shall  you  do  with  the  waste  stuff  from 
the  household  ?  Collect  it  in  cans  and  sit  up 
nights  to  burn  it,  if  you  can't  do  any  better. 
Have  it  carted  off  frequently  on  to  your  land 
far  enough  from  the  house  to  secure  decent 
cleanliness,  at  least.  Or,  if  you  have  n't  any 
land  outside  your  city  lot,  or  small  dooryard, 
hire  somebody  to  cart  it  off  on  to  his.  Use 
earth  closets,  if  you  must.  Run  the  kitchen 
waste  water  far  away  from  the  well.  Study 
the  soil  and  the  rocks  a  bit  in  your  region. 
But  don't  stand  on  a  compost  heap  near  the 
well-curb,  and  scream  scorn  and  defiance  at 
anybody  who  comes  along,  and,  for  your  own 
good,  tells  you  that  no  matter  who  makes 
your  clothes,  no  matter  how  much  your  house 


98       DRINKING-WATER  AND  ICE   SUPPLIES. 

costs,  or  how  much  you  spend  in  scrubbings 
and  Platt's  Chlorides,  you  are  essentially  a 
dirty  as  well  as  a  dangerous  fellow,  and  ought 
to  have  been  poisoned  off  before  this,  if  you 
have  n't. 

The  writer  does  n't  propose  to  state  just 
how  many  feet  from  the  well  the  barnyard  or 
the  drain  outlet  may  safely  be,  because  these 
are  questions  which  can  only  be  answered  one 
by  one  for  each  particular  case.  It  is  that  the 
householder  who  is  the  arbiter  of  his  own  des- 
tinies in  the  matter  of  wells  may  be  able  to 
judge  somewhat  for  himself  of  the  necessities 
of  the  case,  that  we  have  gone  so  considerably 
into  other  domains  to  gather  the  foundations 
for  an  individual  judgment. 

Take  the  facts  which  may  be  gleaned  from 
any  good  book  on  Hygiene,  with  some  of  the 
points  in  the  new  bacterial  lore  here  so  briefly 
set  forth  ;  add  to  these  an  abundance  of  per- 
sonal observation,  and  mix  all  with  brains,  and 
it  will  be  a  tough  problem  in  water  purveying 
which  can't  be  solved  without  recourse  to  the 
analyst. 

Ordinarily  wells  in  populous  towns  or  wher- 


DRINKING-WATER  AND  ICE   SUPPLIES.        99 

ever  they  are  near  to  out-buildings,  drains,  etc., 
are  always  liable  to  contamination,  and  should 
always  be  regarded  with  suspicion. 

It  should  be  distinctly  understood  by  every- 
body that  clearness  and  lack  of  bad  taste  in  a 
water  do  not  at  all  signify  that  it  is  free 
from  dangerous  impurity.  Many  millions  of 
germs,  harmful  and  harmless,  may  be  present 
in  a  glass  of  water  without  in  the  slightest  de- 
gree impairing  its  transparency  to  the  naked 
eye. 

While  it  has  been  many  times  proven  that 
typhoid  fever  has  been  acquired  by  drinking 
water  from  wells  polluted  with  sewage  contain- 
ing this  germ,  there  is  little  doubt  that,  on 
the  whole,  polluted  well  water  has  been  much 
too  often  assumed  to  have  given  rise  to  this 
contagion,  without  adequate  proof.  People 
are  not  sufficiently  aware  how  readily  the  germ 
of  typhoid  may  be  carried  from  the  sick  to  the 
well,  in  milk,  on  the  surfaces  of  fruits  and  other 
articles  of  food,  on  the  hands  of  attendants, 
and  by  flies  which  have  had  access  to  the  un- 
disinfected  excreta. 

There  seems  to  be  little  to  add  here  to  what 


IOO     DRINKING-WATER  AND  ICE  SUPPLIES, 

has  already  been  said  in  regard  to  the  neces- 
sity for  care  and  intelligence  in  the  construc- 
tion of  wells,  and  in  deciding  upon  their 
situation  in  reference  to  the  depositing  places 
of  household  waste.  In  fact,  the  marvellous 
cleansing  powers  of  the  soil  may,  when  reason- 
able care  has  been  exercised,  be  relied  upon 
to  prevent  well-pollution  under  most  ordinary 
conditions. 

The  wholesale  and  indiscriminate  condemna- 
tion of  wells,  which  one  so  frequently  hears 
nowadays,  as  sources  of  family  water  supply, 
does  not  appear  to  be  just.  But  so  frequent 
are  the  offences  against  sanitary  laws  in  the 
situation  and  construction  of  wells,  that  there 
is  little  doubt  that  it  would  be  a  positive  bene- 
fit if  at  least  half  of  the  wells  in  the  United 
States  were  to  be  closed  forthwith. 


CHAPTER  XIII. 

ARTIFICIAL   WATER   PURIFICATION. 

WE  have  seen  that  Nature  provides  in  a 
most  efficient  and  liberal  way  for  the 
purification  of  water  on  a  large  scale.  We 
have  seen  that  the  difficulties  in  the  way  of 
getting  pure  water,  either  for  large  towns  or 
for  individual  households,  are  largely  due  to 
the  reprehensible  way  in  which  people  allow 
their  household  or  manufacturing  waste  to  run 
into  the  natural  sources  of  water  supply,  be 
they  rivers,  lakes,  springs,  or  wells.  We  have 
learned  that  the  most  important  polluting 
materials  are  those  which  come  from  the 
bodies  of  persons  suffering  from  bacterial 
disease,  because  these  materials  are  apt  to 
contain  living  germs  capable  of  inducing  the 
same  diseases  in  predisposed  persons,  when 
taken  in  with  drinking-water. 

101 


102      DRINKING-WATER  AND  ICE   SUPPLIES. 

We  thus  see  that  when  we  go  back  to  the 
original  sources  of  the  trouble,  we  find  that  if 
the  materials  discharged  from  the  bodies  of 
the  victims  of  bacterial  diseases,  and  especially 
of  typhoid  fever  and  Asiatic  cholera,  were  at 
once  burned  or  received  into  disinfecting  solu- 
tions of  sufficient  strength  and  allowed  to 
remain  there  for  a  few  hours,  or  until  all  the 
germs  were  killed,  we  should  have  taken  the 
first  great  step  towards  the  removal  of  the 
dangers  of  polluted  water.  Until  this  is  done 
by  the  joint  efforts  of  an  intelligent  people  and 
conscientious  physicians,  reinforced  by  proper 
regulations  established  by  the  health  authori- 
ties, all  other  efforts  towards  securing  pure 
water  in  populous  regions  will  be  but  ineffi- 
cient makeshifts. 

The  second  thing  to  be  attended  to  is  to 
secure  such  legislation  as  will  as  fully  as  pos- 
sible prevent  the  access  of  sewage  or  other  un- 
healthy waste  to  the  sources  of  water  supply, 
be  they  lakes  or  streams  or  wells.  Such  out- 
rageous pollution  of  water  used  for  drinking 
as  goes  on  in  the  Hudson  at  and  above  Al- 
bany, or  in  the  Schuylkill,  from  which  Phila- 


DRINKING-WATER  AND  ICE   SUPPLIES.      1 03 


delphia  is  largely  supplied,  and  in  many  other 
places  in  the  land,  is  nothing  short  of  criminal, 
and  should  be  made  legally  so  without  delay. 

The  problem  of  sewage  disposal  is  a  very 
complex  one,  and  needs  more  such  careful 
study  as  has  been  going  on  for  some  time 
under  the  auspices  of  the  Massachusetts  Board 
of  Health.  But  enough  is  already  known 
about  it  to  render  wholly  unjustifiable  the 
present  filthy  practices  which  are  permitted  all 
over  this  land.  The  older  countries  have 
seen  the  folly  of  such  wholesale  poisoning  of 
water  sources,  and  have  taken  steps  to  pre- 
vent it. 

It  is  a  great  pity  that  people  are  not  more 
generally  informed  regarding  some  of  the 
most  excellent  forms  of  cremating  furnaces, 
in  which  all  the  garbage  and  all  other  waste 
from  single  households  and  public  institutions, 
or  from  whole  villages  and  even  large  cities, 
can  be  cheaply  and  easily  destroyed.  If  this 
were  done  the  whole  problem  of  pure  water 
supplies  and  of  general  cleanliness  in  both 
villages  and  cities  would  be  brought  a  long  way 
nearer  to  a  favorable  solution. 


104      DRINKING-WATER  AND  ICE  SUPPLIES. 

The  prevention  of  water  pollution  is  ur- 
gently demanded,  not  only  in  those  water 
supplies  which  are  already  bad  ;  but  should  be 
looked  to  in  anticipation  of  the  future  in  those 
supplies  which  are  still  fairly  pure,  but  which 
are  liable  to  become  less  and  less  so  as  the 
country  around  them  becomes  more  populous. 
The  Croton  water  supply  of  the  great  city  of 
New  York  is  in  many  respects  an  ideal  one, 
and  the  Croton  water  is  usually  very  good 
water  indeed.  But,  before  all  other  things 
connected  with  it — before  new  acqueducts, 
new  distributing  sources,  new  dams,  new  reser- 
voirs, before  all  else — this  one  thing  should  be 
looked  to,  that  the  shores  of  the  streams  and 
lakes  which  furnish  the  water  shall  be  abso- 
lutely protected  from  the  entrance  of  human 
or  animal  or  manufacturing  waste. 

Intelligent  and  stringent  legislation  is  need- 
ed in  this  matter,  or  we  shall  wake  some  day 
to  find  our  water  polluted  at  its  sources  by  the 
new  habitations  which  are  sure  to  cluster 
about  them  in  the  series  of  charming  and  at- 
tractive valleys  where  they  lie. 

We  should  not  oermit  our  attention  to  be 


DRINKING-WATER  AND  ICE  SUPPLIES.      10$ 

diverted  from  this  absolute  necessity  by  any 
loose  talk  about  the  colossal  dilution  which 
sewage  would  undergo  if  allowed  to  enter  the 
Croton  supplies,  or  about  the  long  distances 
which  it  has  to  run,  or  about  the  self-purifica- 
tion which  it  may  undergo  on  the  way.  All 
these  favoring  factors  we  should  be  glad  of  and 
cherish,  but  to  prevent  pollution  at  all  hazards 
is  the  first  thing. 

He  who  is  curious  to  learn  just  what  enter- 
ing wedges  towards  a  pollution  of  our  excel- 
lent Croton  water  may  even  now  be  observed, 
can  consult  the  Report  of  the  State  Board  of 
Health  of  New  York,  for  the  year  1889,  in 
which  will  be  found  some  pictorial  intimations, 
more  suggestive  than  savory  of  what  we  have 
to  guard  against. 

One  of  these  illustrations  is  reproduced  in 
Fig.  6  (page  107). 

Now,  although  there  may  be  no  direct 
pouring  of  sewage  from  these  houses  into  this 
tributary  to  the  Croton  stream  shown  in  the  pic- 
ture, a  great  variety  of  surface  contaminations 
are  liable  to  be  washed  into  it  during  heavy 
rains.  These  contaminations  may  be  ordinarily 


106      DRINKING-WATER  AND  ICE   SUPPLIES. 

simply  filthy.  But  let  typhoid  fever  gain  a  foot- 
hold in  the  settlement  and  the  stream  might 
become  dangerous  as  well  as  dirty. 

The  difficulty  with  the  Croton  water  supply 
then,  is  not  that  it  is  always,  or  usually,  or  that 
it  has  ever  been  bad,  but  that  it  is  liable  at  any 
time,  temporarily  at  least,  to  become  so,  if  the 
shores  of  the  streams  and  reservoirs  are  not 
more  carefully  attended  to. 

The  condition  of  the  Croton  water  supply 
is  typical  of  the  supplies  of  many  towns  in  this 
country,  which,  naturally  excellent,  are  in 
danger  of  becoming  bad  and  dangerous,  as 
population  increases,  through  lack  of  stringent 
legislation  and  intelligent  and  faithful  inspec- 
tion. 

It  will  no  doubt  be  always  practically  impossi- 
ble to  preserve  absolutely  pure  the  water  sup- 
plies which  originate,  or  are  stored  in,  or  which 
pass  in  open  channels  through  populous  re- 
gions. Under  these  conditions,  it  is  now  in 
many  cases  necessary,  and  with  increasing  fre- 
quency will  become  so,  to  subject  the  water  to 
filtration  or  other  forms  of  purification  on  the 
large  scale. 


108      DRINKING-WATER  AND  ICE  SUPPLIES. 

On  the  whole,  the  most  successful  proced- 
ures in  the  way  of  artificial  purification  of  water 
for  domestic  use  on  the  large  scale  have  been 
those  in  which  Nature's  modes  of  wholesale 
soil  filtration  have  been  most  closely  imitated. 
For  this  purpose,  great  filter  beds  are  con- 
structed, having  stones  at  the  bottom,  and  on 
these  layers  of  pebbles  and  gravel  with  sand 
on  the  top.  Now,  it  has  been  found  that  a 
filter  bed  in  this  condition  simply  strains  and 
in  a  measure  clarifies  the  water,  but  does  not 
remove  its  bacteria  or  its  dissolved  organic 
matter.  It  is  only  when  the  layer  of  bacte- 
rial slime  has  been  formed  at  the  top,  in  the 
way  which  we  have  studied  in  another  chapter, 
that  the  water  may  be  largely  freed  from  its 
germs  and  its  other  organic  pollutions.  The 
sand  and  gravel  and  stones  simply  afford  a 
supporting  medium  for  the  actual  purifier — the 
bacteria-formed  pellicles  and  the  hungry  germs 
which  they  enclose.  Under  these  conditions, 
however,  the  filtration  must  go  on  slowly  or 
the  protecting  pellicle  either  tears  or  becomes 
inefficient,  owing  to  the  shortness  of  time 
during  which  the  water  is  in  contact  with 
the  cleansing  layers. 


DRINKING-WATER  AND  ICE  SUPPLIES.      109 

While  this  in  general  is  the  way  in  which 
water  is  purified  by  the  use  of  large  filter  beds, 
it  has  been  found  that  if  Nature  be  a  little 
more  closely  imitated  still,  the  results  are  bet- 
ter. In  natural  filtration  in  the  soil  the  water 
does  not  lie,  as  a  rule,  very  long  at  a  time  over 
the  surface  of  the  ground,  but  when  the  rain 
ceases,  and  the  water  soaks  downward  towards 
the  ground-water  reservoirs,  the  pores  of  the 
soil  become  more  or  less  filled  with  air.  Now 
the  oxygen  of  the  ground  ai'r  seems  to  be  a 
very  necessary  thing  for  the  bacteria  which 
tear  polluting  organic  compounds  to  pieces 
in  the  process  of  natural  filtration.  So  the 
intermittent  character  of  the  soil  filtration  has 
been  copied  in  some  artificial  filter  beds,  which 
are  not  kept  ceaselessly  at  work  with  their 
pores  always  full  of  water,  but  this  is  allowed 
frequently  to  settle  through,  so  that  the  air 
may  get  into  them  when  the  surface  is  again 
flooded.  Now  the  bacteria,  in  the  presence  of 
this  new  supply  of  oxygen,  can  tear  apart  and 
destroy  much  more  completely  than  they  could 
without  it  the  polluting  organic  matter,  should 
there  be  any  such  in  the  water. 

There  are  many  other  modes  of   so-called 


110      DRINKING-WATER  AND  ICE   SUPPLIES. 

filtration  and  of  water  purification  on  the  large 
scale.  But  this  use  of  large  filter  beds  in  close 
imitation  of  Nature  seems  to  be  the  most  per- 
fect of  all  the  practicable  cleansing  processes 
now  in  use. 

I  do  not  say  that  some  of  the  more  rapid 
modes  of  water  filtration  on  the  large  scale, 
such  as  are  considerably  used  in  this  country,  are 
not  of  value;  but  only  that  they  have  not,  so 
far  as  I  am  aware,  successfully  sustained  such 
practical  and  accurate  tests  as  have  shown  the 
filter  beds  here  described  to  be  most  efficient. 

There  are  ways  of  removing  foreign  material 
from  water  by  the  addition  of  small  quantities 
of  chemicals  which  cause  a  voluminous  precipi- 
tate, and  these,  on  settling,  may  carry  down  a 
large  part  of  the  undesirable  impurities.  These 
precipitation  methods  are  usually  combined 
with  some  mode  of  filtration,  and  are  regarded 
by  many  as  very  efficient.  But  as  they  are 
commonly  applied  to  the  purification  of  waters 
on  the  large  scale,  we  need  not  dwell  here  upon 
their  merits  and  demerits. 

We  have  now  finished  with  the  large  water 
supplies,  their  pollutions,  and  the  means  to 


DRINKING-WATER  AND  ICE   SUPPLIES.      Ill 

prevent  or  partially  to  counteract  them.  These 
matters  are  mostly  in  the  hands  of  experts, 
who  should  do  for  us  on  the  large  scale  what 
the  householder  in  the  country  must  do  for 
himself. 

But,  some  one  will  say,  what  is  the  city  house- 
holder to  do,  who  either  suspects  or  knows 
that  the  city  water  is  not  wholesome,  in  spite 
of  the  experts  ?  Such  things  have  been  heard 
of  as  municipal  governments  which  were  much 
more  concerned  in  gathering  spoils  for  their 
administrators  than  in  furnishing  pure  water 
and  clean  surroundings  for  the  people. 

The  case  is  indeed  a  hard  one,  and  the  more 
difficult  to  treat  from  a  scientific  standpoint, 
because  the  professional  politician  is  apparently 
one  of  those  monstrosities  who  is  not  in  accord 
either  with  nature  or  science  or  common-sense, 
and  does  n't  fit  into  any  system  of  reasonable 
living. 

The  remedy  rests  obviously  enough  with 
the  citizens  themselves,  and  it  may  be  possi- 
ble that  some  day  respectable  voters  will 
realize  in  what  serious  jeopardy  they  place 
both  health  and  life  by  the  election  of  men 


112      DRINKING-WATER  AND  ICE   SUPPLIES. 

to  important  municipal  offices  for  their  politi- 
cal affiliations  and  not  for  their  fitness. 

One,  of  course,  thinks  first,  when  confronted 
with  the  case  of  the  town  householder  whose 
water  supply  is  bad,  of  the  small  domestic 
filters.  These,  the  writer  is  fully  convinced, 
are,  as  a  rule,  a  great  deal  worse  than  nothing. 
Almost  all  of  them  afford  breeding-places  for 
germs,  and  furnish  water  much  richer  in  them 
after  than  before  filtration.  Most  of  them 
strain  the  water,  and  by  thus  removing  some 
of  the  cruder,  but  for  the  most  part  harmless, 
impurities,  make  it  look  clearer  and  more  at- 
tractive, but  that,  as  a  rule,  is  all. 

There  are  one  or  two  forms  of  small  do- 
mestic filters  which,  if  allowed  to  act  very 
slowly,  may  remove  a  considerable  proportion 
of  the  bacteria  which  polluted  water  contains. 
But  all  of  the  domestic  filters  which  act 
rapidly  are  inefficient  so  far  as  the  removal  of 
bacteria  is  concerned.  That  this  must  be  so 
is  evident  when  we  reflect  upon  the  exceeding 
minuteness  of  these  germs,  which  pass  readily 
through  pores  large  enough  to  permit  the  pas- 
sage of  large  amount  of  water  in  a  short  time, 


f   UNIVERSITY  J 

DRINKING-WATER  AND  /(ShStfij^^^^I  1 3 

especially  under  heavy  pressure.  Certain  of 
the  unglazed  porcelain  filters,  such  as  the 
"  Pasteur"  and  the  "  Berkefeldt,"  are  the  most 
reliable  for  household  use  ;  but  these  must  be 
frequently  cleaned,  and  sterilized  with  great 
care,  if  fairly  germ-free  water  is  to  be  secured. 

The  small  sand  and  sponge  and  cotton  fil- 
ters and  others  of  their  ilk,  which  screw  on  to 
the  water  faucet,  and  let  large  volumes  of 
water  rapidly  through  them,  should  be  forth- 
with and  definitely  discarded,  unless  it  be  un- 
derstood that  they  are  simply  strainers  and  not 
filters,  and  that  their  filling  of  whatever  kind 
must  be  renewed  every  day. 

In  fact,  the  unhappy  citizen  who  is  sup- 
plied with  dirty  and  dangerous  water,  will  usu- 
ally find  his  best  security  in  boiling  that  portion 
which  is  to  be  used  for  drinking,  as  a  matter 
of  household  routine,  for  half  an  hour.  Or, 
if  he  can  afford  it,  he  may  purchase  for  such 
use  water  which  has  been  purified  by  distilla- 
tion by  some  reliable  manufacturer. 

But  these  are  all  melancholy  makeshifts,  and 
should  be  looked  upon  solely  as  temporary  de- 
vices to  be  employed  only  until  the  general 


114      DRINKING-WATER  AND  ICE   SUPPLIES. 

supply  has  been  made  wholesome.  This  can 
always  be  done,  if  only  the  people  demand  it 
with  intelligent  and  unwearied  insistance. 

Enough  has  been  said  about  wells  and 
springs  from  which  in  general  the  rural  house- 
holder gets  his  domestic  supplies.  It  has  been 
the  aim  of  the  writer  in  these  chapters,  not  so 
much  to  lay  down  positive  rules,  which  are 
often  impracticable,  as  to  place  the  reader  on  the 
vantage-ground  of  an  intelligent  student,  who 
can  deal  with  individual  cases  as  they  arise. 

It  will  sometimes  happen,  though  not  nearly 
as  often  as  might  be  imagined,  that  the  aid  of 
the  chemist  and  bacteriologist  must  be  sum- 
moned to  pass  judgment  on  a  suspected  source 
of  water  supply.  When  this  is  necessary,  the 
analyst  should  be  consulted  as  to  the  methods 
of  collecting  the  water  samples,  and  he  should 
be  as  fully  as  possible  informed  about  the  sur- 
rounding and  general  condition  of  the  source. 
It  does  not  seem  necessary  here  to  describe 
the  details  of  either  chemical  or  biological 
analyses  of  water.  The  principles  of  the  lat- 
ter have  been  already  set  forth  in  the  preced- 
ing books  of  this  little  series. 


DRINKING-WATER  AND  ICE  SUPPLIES.      11$ 

But  it  should  be  clearly  understood  by  all 
who  seek  expert  council  in  the  matter  of  the 
salubrity  of  a  given  source  of  water  supply, 
that  it  is  seldom  that  the  expert  can  definitely 
decide,  either  by  a  chemical  or  a  biological 
analysis  alone  of  a  water  sample,  or  by  both 
together,  the  whole  question  of  the  purity  and 
safety  of  the  supply. 

Very  often,  in  fact  usually,  a  far  more  posi- 
tive and  reliable  opinion  may  be  formed  by 
an  examination  of  the  source  itself  and  its 
surroundings  than  by  an  analysis,  however 
searching,  of  a  sample  of  the  water.  The  ex- 
amination of  both  the  source  and  the  water 
itself  will  usually  lead  the  expert  to  a  more 
useful  opinion  than  if  reliance  be  placed  upon 
either  method  alone.  The  greatest  usefulness 
of  bacterial  water  analysis  to-day  depends  upon 
its  accuracy  as  a  test  of  the  efficiency  of  the 
filtration  process  to  which  water  has  been  sub- 
jected. The  seeker  after  more  knowledge  on 
the  subject  of  water  supplies  may  profitably 
consult  the  excellent  work  of  Mason. 


CHAPTER  XIV. 

SOLID   WATER. 

WE  have  thus  far  been  studying  water 
only  in  its  liquid  form.  We  may  not 
forget,  however,  that  in  its  gaseous  condition 
as  steam,  water  does  a  large  part  of  man's 
heavy  work  in  the  world  for  him,  and  in  the 
form  of  cloud-vapor  does  much  to  gratify  his 
love  of  the  beautiful.  But  water,  in  its  solid 
form  as  ice,  has  in  modern  times  become  a  very 
important  factor  in  the  physical  well-being 
of  man.  In  the  United  States  not  far  from 
twenty-five  millions  of  tons  are  annually  cut 
and  stowed  away  for  the  year's  consump- 
tion. 

The  Hudson  River  has  hitherto  been  the 
great  source  of  ice  supply  for  the  city  of  New 
York,  and  some  facts  about  the  way  in  which 
it  is  gathered  here  may  not  be  uninteresting, 

TT6 


DRINKING-WATER  AND  ICE  SUPPLIES.      1 1/ 

since  it  is  fairly  typical  of  the  ice  harvesting- 
cm  the  large  scale  all  over  the  country.1 

It  is  said  that  if  all  the  ice-houses  on  the 
Hudson  River  below  Albany  were  placed  side 
by  side,  the  line  would  be  not  far  from  seven 
miles  long. 

The  better  ice-houses,  mostly  of  wood,  have 
efficient  drainage  at  the  bottom.  The  walls 
are  hollow,  containing  an  air  chamber,  and 
within  thb  a  chamber  filled  with  some  non- 
conducting material,  such  as  sawdust  or  hay, 
while  above  is  a  loft  with  abundant  ventilation. 
The  larger  houses  are  divided  into  a  number 
of  rooms,  so  that  when  they  are  opened  for 
the  removal  of  the  ice  the  whole  mass  need 
not  be  exposed  to  the  warm  air  which  enters. 

The  cakes  of  ice,  which  in  this  region  are 
cut  of  a  uniform  size  of  about  twenty-two  by 
thirty-two  inches,  are  usually  laid  flat,  a  solid 
stratum  at  the  bottom.  Above  this  they  are 
placed  on  top  of  one  another  with  two  or  three 
inches  of  space  between  their  edges,  the  joints 

1  Through  the  courtesy  of  the  publishers  of  that  journal,  the  writer 
has  been  permitted  to  use  in  this  and  the  following  chapter  some  ex- 
tracts from  an  article  on  ice,  written  by  him  some  time  ago  for  the 
Popular  Science  Monthly. 


Il8     DRINKING-WATER  AND  ICE  SUPPLIES. 

being  broken  every  few  tiers,  as  in  masonry, 
by  allowing  the  cakes  to  lap  over  the  joints 
below.  The  object  of  the  space  between  the 
edges  of  the  cakes  is  to  prevent  their  freezing 
together,  for  if  this  occurred  their  removal 
would  entail  a  good  deal  of  additional  labor  in 
breaking  them  apart,  and  a  large  loss  of  ice 
which  would  be  chipped  off  in  the  operation. 
When  the  houses,  are  about  full,  a  solid  layer 
of  cakes  is  laid  on  top,  so  that  the  air  may  not 
circulate  between  them,  and  the  whole  is  cov- 
ered with  hay.  A  varying  number  of  smaller 
buildings  are  usually  clustered  about  the  stor- 
age-houses, such  as  engine-house,  tool-house, 
shop,  barn,  and  often  the  boarding-house  for 
the  men. 

But  let  us  leave  these  dry  details  and  get 
out-of-doors,  lest  Winter  should  steal  a  march 
on  us,  and  we  should  lose  those  first  delicate 
crystal  spiculse  shooting  out  from  shore 
and  rock  with  which  he  commonly  begins  his 
work  alike  on  lake  and  stream  and  pool.  Who 
does  not  know  those  fragile  ice-fringes,  losing 
themselves  in  the  open  water,  which  the  first 
frosty  nights  in  autumn  leave  behind  often 


DRINKING-WATER  AND  ICE  SUPPLIES.     119 

only  to  fade  away  in  the  next  day's  sun  ?  But 
when  at  length,  after  these  early,  playful  exhi- 
bitions of  his  gathering  power,  Winter  really 
bends  himself  to  his  work,  the  crystals  grow 
longer  and  thicker,  their  sides  join,  and  finally 
the  completed  film  formed  along  the  surface 
shuts  in  the  water,  and  his  dominion  is 
complete.  Now  his  tactics  change.  The 
caprices  which  he  has  displayed  as  the  long 
crystals  stole  out  in  ever-varying  directions 
from  the  shore  are  subdued,  and  the  stern 
work  of  strengthening  his  fetters  fairly  begins. 

After  the  first  film  of  ice  is  formed,  the 
freezing  goes  on  directly  downward  as  the 
heat  from  the  water  radiates  off  into  the  colder 
air  above.  The  direction  of  crystallization  has 
changed,  and  is  now  at  right  angles  to  that  in 
which  it  began.  Unhindered  radiation  of  heat 
from  the  water  out  into  the  air  is  the  secret  of 
the  continued  formation  of  ice.  If  any  thing 
occurs  to  prevent  this,  the  ice  stops  forming  be- 
neath. A  fall  of  snow  upon  the  already  made 
ice  greatly  retards  its  continued  formation. 

Some  of  the  elder  ice-harvesters  still  foster 
a  feeble  flame  upon  the  broken  altars  of  the  old 


120     DRINKING-WATER  AND  ICE   SUPPLIES. 

star-worshippers,  in  their  belief  that  the  cold 
rays  from  the  winter  moon  and  stars  favor  in 
some  mysterious  way  the  growth  of  their  ice, 
since  this  forms  best  on  clearest  nights.  Who 
would  dispel  this  chaste  illusion  by  suggesting 
that  the  clouds  which  draw  themselves  at  times 
over  the  faces  of  their  gentle  deities  delay  the 
fruition  of  their  hopes  simply  by  preventing 
the  escape  of  the  earth's  heat  off  into  space  ? 

In  the  vicinity  of  New  York,  where  open 
winters  are  so  common  and  changes  of  tem- 
perature are  so  great  and  frequent,  the  forma- 
tion of  the  ice  is  a  matter  of  the  greatest 
solicitude  to  the  ice-farmer,  upon  whose  vigi- 
lance and  judgment  may  largely  depend  both 
the  value  and  abundance  of  his  winter's  crop. 

While  the  weather  is  clear  and  cold,  and  the 
colder  and  clearer  the  better,  all  goes  well 
with  the  growing  crop,  as  slowly  the  water 
yields  itself  into  its  crystal  bonds,  and  the 
domain  of  the  clear  solid  ice  creeps  downward 
inch  by  inch.  But  this  condition  of  affairs, 
quite  ideal  from  the  standpoint  of  the  ice- 
farmer,  is  apt  in  this  region  to  be  evanescent. 
If  the  grip  of  the  cold  relaxes  by  day,  the 


DRINKING-WATER  AND  ICE   SUPPLIES.     121 

formation  of  ice  may  stop,  and  even  a  film  of 
that  already  made  may  melt  away  in  the  water 
beneath  ;  but  at  night  again  another  layer  may 
be  added,  and  so,  with  many  halts,  retreats, 
and  slow  advances,  little  by  little  the  ice-mass 
thickens.  But  who  would  imagine  that,  writ- 
ten in  the  ice,  as  plainly  as  the  sequence  of 
geologic  ages  is  written  in  the  rocks,  is  the 
record  of  these  alternate  victories  of  heat  and 
cold,  as  they  contended  for  the  mastery  of  the 
water  during  the  winter  days  and  nights  ? 
Strange  as  it  may  seem,  the  record  is  there, 
however,  and,  stranger  yet,  is  written  in  air. 
Look  at  the  edge  of  a  cake  of  ice  which  has 
formed  in  comparatively  still  water  during  such 
alternations  of  temperature  as  are  common  in 
our  winters,  and  you  will  be  very  apt  to  see  a 
series  of  bands  of  transparent  ice,  between 
which  lie  layers  of  tiny  air  bubbles.  In  still 
water,  when  the  ice  for  any  reason  stops 
forming  for  a  time,  bubbles  of  air  from  the 
water  or  from  the  bottom  are  apt  to  rise  and 
collect  beneath  the  ice,  and  when  the  freezing 
again  begins  they  are  entangled  and  held  fast 
between  the  old  and  the  new  ice-layers,  a  per- 


122     DRINKING-WATER  AND  ICE   SUPPLIES. 

manent  record  of  the  relaxation  of  the  thrall 
of  the  cold  long  enough  for  their  collection. 
In  running  water  such  bubbles  are  apt  to  be 
swept  away,  and  the  ice  remains  transparent. 
While  the  ice  is  thus  forming  the  ice-farmer 
looks  on,  his  spirits  rising  in  inverse  ratio 
to  the  height  of  the  thermometer.  To  the 
vagaries  of  the  temperature  he  must  reconcile 
himself  as  best  he  may.  But  let  his  b£te  noire, 
the  snow — if  so  violent  an  antithesis  be  per- 
missible— appear,  and  he  will  be  on  the  alert 
at  once.  The  snow-flakes,  delicately  adjust- 
ing themselves  to  one  another  as  they  settle 
down  upon  the  ice,  build  up  among  their  crys- 
tals myriads  of  tiny  air  cavities,  and  the  whole 
forms  a  veritable  blanket  which  hinders  radia- 
tion. It  is  warm  for  the  same  reason  that  a 
down  comfortable  is — it  prevents  the  escape 
of  heat.  Now,  what  shall  our  ice-farmer  do  ? 
It  does  little  good  to  swear  at  the  snow,  al- 
though he  usually  has  recourse  to  this  pro- 
cedure first.  If  the  already  formed  ice  is 
thick  enough  to  bear  the  teams,  he  may  scrape 
the  snow  off,  and  then  the  freezing  can  go  on. 
But  if  not,  he  sends  his  men  over  the  field  to 


DRINKING-WATER  AND  ICE   SUPPLIES.      123 

cut  small  holes  here  and  there  through  it ;  the 
water  wells  up,  flows  over  the  top,  forming  a 
layer  of  slush,  a  good  deal  of  the  air  is  ex- 
pelled, and  the  whole  freezes,  forming  a  whit- 
ish layer  which  is  called  snow  ice. 

This  layer  is  whitish  because  of  the  air 
bubbles  which  it  still  retains,  but  it  conducts 
off  the  heat  fairly  well,  and  his  crop  goes 
on  forming.  This  operation  is  called  "  tap- 
ping" or  "bleeding"  the  ice.  Ice  which  has 
a  very  thick  snow  layer  is  called  "  fat  ice." 
This  snow  ice  is  not  as  valuable  as  clear  ice, 
for  householders  object  to  it  because  they 
fancy  that  it  is  not  so  pure,  and  the  assurances 
of  the  dealers  that  the  impurity  is  only  air 
appear  to  have  little  weight.  So  the  more 
responsible  dealers  usually  find  it  for  their 
interest  to  remove  most  of  the  snow  layer. 
A  little  snow  ice  on  the  cakes,  however, 
makes  them  keep  better.  We  shall  see  by 
and  by  that  there  are  really  very  good  reasons 
why  the  snow  ice  from  certain  sources  should 
not  be  used  for  drinking  purposes. 

Too  much  ice  must  not  be  grooved  out  by 
the  ploughs  in  advance,  lest  in  case  of  rain  the 


124      DRINKING-WATER  AND  ICE  SUPPLIES. 

channels  should  fill  and  freeze  solid,  and  the 
labor  be  wasted.  So  it  is  frequently  necessary 
for  the  workers  at  the  plough  to  be  out  long 
before  light  in  the  morning,  grooving  out 
blocks  for  the  harvesters  when  the  day  begins. 
It  is  a  picturesque  sight — these  hardy  men, 
muffled  to  their  ears,  following  the  gingerly 
treading  teams  back  and  forth  over  the  ice- 
fields by  the  light  of  flaring,  smoky  torches, 
hung  on  poles  stuck  in  the  ice.  More  than 
once  the  swinging  lamps,  which  have  done 
patriotic  duty  in  some  campaign  torch-light 
procession,  have  found  themselves  relegated 
to  the  austere  and  chilling  duty  of  illuminating 
hoary  ice-fields  before  the  dawn,  instead  of 
lending  force  to  the  political  claims  and  con- 
victions of  would-be  or  would-continue-to-be 
American  statesmen  after  dark. 

At  last  the  vicissitudes  and  anxieties  of  the 
growth  of  the  ice  crop  are  over,  and  the  "  boss  " 
decides  that  the  cutting  shall  begin.  The 
first  step  in  the  ice  gathering  is  to  draw  two 
long,  straight  lines  on  the  ice  at  right  angles 
to  each  other.  With  these  as  a  guide,  a  part 
of  the  field  is  marked  off  into  blocks  of  the 


DRINKING-WATER  AND  ICE   SUPPLIES.       12$ 

proper  size,  and  it  then  looks  like  a  gigantic 
checker-board.  Then  other  teams  come  on, 
drawing  the  ice-ploughs,  which  are  long,  narrow- 
toothed  blades,  running  along  the  ice  like  great 
horizontal  saws.  One  plough  follows  another 
along  these  narrow  grooves  until  they  are 
deep  enough,  so  that  long  strips  of  the  out- 
lined cakes  may  be  readily  loosened  by  a 
saw.  These  separated  strips  of  ice,  grooved 
off  into  cakes,  are  pushed  along  in  a  channel 
which  has  been  cleared  through  the  ice  up  to 
the  foot  of  the  endless  chain  which  runs  up  an 
incline  to  the  houses.  Here  the  strips  are 
broken  apart  along  the  deep  cross-grooves  into 
cakes  by  hand-bars  shaped  like  chisels. 

The  cakes  are  now  caught  upon  projections 
from  the  elevating  chain,  moved  by  steam, 
and  up  they  go,  one  after  another,  to  the  plat- 
forms at  varying  heights  around  the  ice-houses, 
or  directly  in  at  the  main  door.  When  the 
cakes  enter  the  storage-rooms  they  are  shoved 
along  wooden  runs  or  movable  tracks  to  various 
parts  of  the  chamber,  where,  layer  by  layer, 
they  are  stowed  away.  Sometimes  a  single 
inclined  plane  with  its  endless  chain  leads  up 


126     DRINKING-WATER  AND  ICE  SUPPLIES. 

to  a  series  of  platforms  along  the  front  of  the 
building,  which  tier  above  tier  slope  gently 
away  from  the  top  of  the  incline,  so  that  the 
ice-cakes,  leaving  the  chain  at  the  centre,  are 
slid  down  the  platforms  to  the  various  openings. 
The  ice  mass,  which  is  quite  imposing  as 
one  looks  across  it  in  the  larger  houses,  must 
be  carefully  and  skilfully  packed,  and  be  self- 
supporting.  Many  a  dealer  has  come  to  grief 
by  the  fall  of  his  building  from  the  collapse  of 
the  ice  mass  within.  The  construction  of  the 
great  and  elaborate  ice  palaces  with  which  the 
people  of  Montreal  and  St.  Paul  sometimes 
amuse  themselves  in  winter  is  comparatively 
simple,  because  water  is  poured  in  between 
the  blocks,  and  the  whole  freezes  to  a  solid 
mass  as  it  rises.  But  the  art  of  the  commer- 
cial ice-builder  consists  in  making  his  ice  mass 
solid  enough  to  stand  alone,  with  just  as  little 
freezing  together  of  the  cakes  as  possible. 


CHAPTER  XV. 

THE   INVISIBLE   ICE   FLORA. 

r  I  ^HERE  is  yet  another  phase  in  the  story 
X  of  the  ice  which  we  must  not  overlook. 
We  have  been  wont  to  believe  that  the  frag- 
ment of  ice,  which  forms  such  a  constant  and 
pleasing  adjunct  to  our  glass  of  water,  is  the 
very  ideal  of  purity.  But  the  common  belief 
that,  in  freezing,  water  purifies  itself  from  all 
kinds  of  contamination,  has  been  shown  to  be 
quite  untrue ;  and,  ungraceful  as  is  the  task  of 
dispelling  so  pleasing  an  illusion,  we  shall  do 
unwisely  if  we  ignore  the  revelations  of  mod- 
ern science,  and  for  the  sake  of  a  momentary 
mental  quietude  remain  oblivious  to  a  real 
danger,  which  the  indiscriminate  use  of  ice  for 
drinking  purposes  unquestionably  entails. 

He  who  is  familiar  with  the  researches  of 
Tyndall  and  other  physicists  on  the  structure 

127 


128     DRINKING-WATER  AND  ICE  SUPPLIES. 

of  ice,  knows  how  little  we  can  be  aware,  from 
the  simple  inspection  of  a  lump  of  clear  ice, 
beautiful  as  it  is,  how  marvellously  it  is  built 
up,  crystal  by  crystal,  into  the  solid  form  we 
know  so  well.  But  if  we  turn  a  beam  of  sun- 
light upon  it,  concentrated  by  a  lens,  the 
exquisite  and  varied  stellate  figures  which  flash 
out  within  the  solid  mass  as  the  magic  touch 
of  the  sunbeam  releases  the  molecules  of  water 
from  their  crystal  bonds  give  us  enchanting 
glimpses  of  the  still  but  half-won  secrets  of 
beauty  and  of  order  with  which  Nature  so 
fondly  sports  and  still  so  cleverly  conceals. 

But  the  resources  of  the  physicists  do  not 
suffice  to  conjure  all  its  secrets  from  a  block  of 
ice.  It  is  left  for  the  student  of  that  phase  of 
nature  which  we  call  life  to  discover  that  this 
very  type  of  cold  impassive  lifelessness  may  be 
fairly  teeming,  absolutely  transparent  though 
it  be,  with  whole  families  and  races  of  living 
things — dormant  from  chill,  it  is  true,  but 
ready  at  the  touch  of  warmth  and  in  the 
presence  of  their  food  to  start  on  a  career  of 
growth  and  multiplication,  to  which  the  in- 
crease in  the  world's  populousness,  since  the 


DRINKING-WATER  AND  ICE   SUPPLIES.    12Q 

old  Ice  age  faded,  is  but  a  poor  and  halting 
comparison. 

We  cannot  follow  the  student  of  these  lowly 
forms  of  life,  which  have  become  entangled 
among  the  ice  crystals,  as  he  calls  them  back 
from  their  torpor,  separates  them  one  by  one, 
and  patiently  studies  their  life  history.  It  is 
not  enough  to  melt  the  ice  and  look  at  the  re- 
sulting water  through  the  microscope.  But 
he  plants  the  melted  ice  in  good  bacterial 
food,  and  studies  the  forms  which  grow,  and 
finds  out  how  numerous  they  are. 

A  great  deal  of  careful  experiment  has 
shown  that  water  in  freezing  largely  expels  its 
coarser  visible  contaminations,  and  also  that  a 
large  proportion  of  the  invisible  bacteria  which 
it  contains  may  be  destroyed,  even  as  many  as 
ninety  per  cent.  But  still  large  numbers  may 
remain  alive,  for  many  species  are  quite  invul- 
nerable to  the  action  of  cold.  It  has  been 
found  that  in  ice  formed  from  water  containing 
many  bacteria,  such  as  water  with  sewage 
contaminations,  the  snow-ice  almost  invariably 
contains  many  more  living  bacteria  than  the 
more  solid,  transparent  part  ;  so  that  the  snow- 


I3O     DRINKING-WATER  AND  ICE   SUPPLIES. 

layer  should  be  especially  avoided  in  ice  ob- 
tained from  questionable  sources. 

Unfortunately  the  bacteria  which  cause 
typhoid  fever  are  not  readily  killed  by  cold, 
and  may  remain  alive  for  months,  fast  frozen 
in  a  block  of  ice.  But  the  typhoid-fever  germ 
can  be  present  in  water,  so  far  as  we  know, 
only  when  it  is  contaminated  with  refuse  from 
persons  suffering  from  the  disease  ;  so  that,  if 
we  can  be  certain  that  our  ice  was  cut  from 
water  uncontaminated  with  sewage  or  human 
waste,  we  have  nothing  to  fear  from  its  use  so 
far  as  this  disease  is  concerned. 

A  considerable  part  of  the  ice  supplied  in 
ordinary  seasons  to  New  York  and  Brooklyn 
is  cut  on  the  Hudson  River,  and  much  of  it  just 
below  Albany,  where  the  stream  is  so  greatly 
contaminated  with  the  sewage  of  two  large 
towns,  Troy  and  Albany,  as  to  be  absolutely 
filthy.  In  both  of  these  towns  typhoid  fever 
is  of  frequent  occurrence  during  the  period  in 
which  ice  is  forming,  and  the  waste  from  the 
victims  passes  directly  into  the  river.  There 
would,  therefore,  seem  to  be  a  very  real  danger 
in  the  use  of  some  of  the  Hudson  River  ice. 


DRINKING-WATER  AND  ICE   SUPPLIES.      131 

The  responses  which  one  commonly  meets 
when  he  has  occasion  to  point  out  the  possi- 
bility of  danger  from  the  use  of  impure  ice  are 
apt  to  be :  "  How  horrid.  Why  do  you  add 
another  misery  to  life  ?  "  or,  "  Our  fathers  have 
never  suffered  from  the  use  of  ice,  and  why 
should  we  ?  "  etc.  No  sanitary  danger  has  ever 
been  pointed  out,  and  no  improvement  insti- 
tuted, which  had  not  to  stem  just  such  opposi- 
tion. The  cesspool  has  given  way  to  the 
sewer,  and  the  town-well  to  the  distant  water 
supply,  in  the  face  of  the  same  sort  of  silly 
protest  on  the  part  of  many  of  those  whose 
own  most  vital  interests  were  at  stake — persons 
who  ignore  the  fact  that  an  ever-increasing 
vigilance  is  necessary  to  ward  off  the  dangers 
which  the  aggregation  of  large  numbers  of 
people  in  cities  invariably  entails. 

The  danger  from  the  use  of  impure  ice  in 
New  York,  though  widespread,  is  not  very 
alarming,  so  far  as  the  liability  to  extensive 
outbreaks  of  typhoid-fever  are  concerned, 
because  most  of  the  ice  which  is  furnished 
appears  to  be  of  fair  quality.  But  if  the  risk 
of  an  attack  of  the  disease  can  be  warded  off 


132      DRINKING-WATER  AND  ICE   SUPPLIES. 

from  one  in  ten  thousand  of  our  fellows,  the 
gain  is  worth  the  effort.  We  do  not  need  to 
be  unduly  squeamish,  but  it  is  well  enough  to 
be  intelligent  in  the  face  of  sanitary  dangers. 

The  ice  companies,  unless  controlled  by  the 
State  Health  Department,  will  doubtless  con- 
tinue to  cut  and  to  furnish  sewage  ice  along 
with  the  rest  just  as  long  as  their  customers 
will  tolerate  it.  But  if  householders  would 
insist  upon  the  assurance  that  their  ice  should 
not  come  from  the  immediate  vicinity  of  Al- 
bany, or  from  directly  below  other  towns 
draining  into  the  river,  the  companies  would 
soon  recognize  that  acquiescence  in  this  rea- 
sonable demand  is  the  wiser  and  more  profita- 
ble course. 

We  have  entered  into  the  details  of  the 
New  York  ice  supply  because  it  illustrates 
conditions  which  are  found  everywhere  in  this 
country  where  natural  ice  is  cut  and  stored 
for  sale. 

Ice-water  is  so  cold  that  the  nerves  of  taste 
are  temporarily  benumbed,  and  so  the  bad 
taste  of  much  of  the  filthy  ice  goes  unnoticed, 
and  we  are  not  warned,  as  we  are  in  the  use  of 


DRINKING-WATER  AND  ICE   SUPPLIES.       133 

some  bad  waters  used  at  a  more  moderate 
temperature.  Then  again,  it  should  not  be 
forgotten  that  many  millions  of  living  germs 
may  be  present  in  a  bit  of  ice  no  larger  than  a 
hen's  egg,  and  yet  its  beautiful  transparency 
may  not  be  in  the  least  degree  impaired. 

It  may  be  regarded  as  a  safe  practical  rule, 
that  a  body  of  water  which  from  its  conditions 
and  surroundings  would  not  be  considered  as 
a  good  source  of  water  supply  should  not  be 
used  to  cut  ice  from  ;  and  this  test  is  perhaps 
after  all  quite  as  valuable  as  are  the  more 
subtle  methods  of  the  analyst. 

If  the  householder  be  not  brave  enough  to 
encounter  the  scorn  of  the  ice-dealer,  or  is  too 
tender-hearted  to  witness  the  picture  of  injured 
innocence  which  he  often  presents  when  the 
details  of  his  business  are  called  in  question, 
the  ice  which  is  used  for  drinking  purposes 
may  be  put  in  a  separate  receptacle,  so  as  not 
to  come  directly  in  contact  with  the  water. 


CHAPTER  XVI. 

ARTIFICIAL  ICE. 

OUR  space  does  not  permit  us  to  consider 
the  growing  importance  of  the  manu- 
facture of  artificial  ice.  But  it  seems  probable 
that  the  sanitary  problems  which  the  use  of 
natural  ice  for  drinking  purposes  presents, 
especially  in  large  cities,  may  find  their  solu- 
tion in  the  increasing  employment  of  artificial 
ice  made  from  distilled  or  otherwise  purified 
water,  or  from  good  natural  water. 

In  regions  where  the  sources  of  ice  are 
good,  and  the  consumer  can  ascertain  what 
they  actually  are,  the  natural  ice  will  most 
likely  continue,  as  it  should,  to  afford  the  gen- 
eral supply.  But  in  cities  like  New  York, 
whose  supply  comes  so  largely  from  a  grossly 
polluted  source,  and  where  the  householder 
has  no  security  that  the  dealer  will  not  furnish 
him  with  this  polluted  ice  when  the  name  of 

134 


DRINKING-WATER  AND  ICE   SUPPLIES.        135 

the  company  implies  a  supply  from  better 
sources,  there  should  be  little  hesitation  on 
the  part  of  the  consumer  to  use  the  artificial 
ice  just  as  soon  as  it  is  furnished  at  reasonable 
rates,  and  the  details  of  its  manufacture  are 
found  to  be  cleanly. 

There  has  been  an  attempt  in  some  quarters 
to  create  and  foster  a  prejudice  against  arti- 
ficial ice  because  ammonia  is  used  in  the  com- 
mon process  of  manufacture.  The  writer  has 
heard  it  gravely  stated  by  the  attaches  of 
the  natural-ice  companies  that  the  bubbles 
in  artificial  ice  were  caused  by  the  ammonia 
which  it  contained  ;  and  in  one  instance  am- 
monia was  metamorphosed  into  "  pneumonia," 
in  the  solemn  warning.  It  seems  hardly  neces- 
sary to  say  here  that  the  ammonia  does  not 
come  in  contact  with  the  water  which  is 
frozen  ;  and  the  bubbles  which  are  frequently 
seen  in  cakes  of  artificial  ice  are  no  more  due 
to  chemicals  used  in  its  manufacture  than  are 
the  bubbles  frequently  so  abundant  in  natural 
ice. 

In  the  cakes  of  artificial  ice  which  are 
already  becoming  familiar  in  our  streets,  one 


136       DRINKING-WATER  AND  ICE   SUPPLIES. 

usually  sees  a  curious  whiter  central  portion, 
made  up  of  air  bubbles,  in  the  largely  trans- 
parent block. 

The  water  in  the  common  process  of  ice 
manufacture  is  placed  in  large  metallic  cans  of 
the  shape  and  size  of  the  finished  ice-cake. 
These  cans  are  surrounded  by  the  cooling 
material,  and  the  freezing  commences  at  the 
sides  of  the  can.  The  ice  crystals  shoot  out 
at  right  angles  to  the  cooling  surfaces,  just  as 
they  do  in  the  formation  of  natural  ice,  and 
as  they  coalesce  at  their  sides  they  squeeze 
out  the  air  which  the  water  contained  in  the 
form  of  bubbles,  and  crowd  it  along  in  front 
of  them  as  freezing  proceeds.  One  result  of 
this  is  that  when  .finally  the  ice  walls  ad- 
vancing from  all  four  sides  of  the  cans  tow- 
ards the  centre  meet,  the  varying  numbers  of 
air  bubbles  entangled  at  the  tips  of  the  ice 
crystals  are  imprisoned  at  the  centre,  form- 
ing the  whiter  bubbly  centre  of  the  block. 

Not  infrequently,  one  sees  in  the  artificial- 
ice  blocks  narrow  bubbly  streaks  extending 
from  the  corners  of  the  block  to  the  central 
bubbly  mass.  These  are  formed  in  the  same 


DRINKING-WATER  AND  ICE   SUPPLIES.      137 


way,  and  indicate  the  line  of  meeting  of  the  ice 
crystals,  which  shot  out  near  the  corners  when 
the  earliest  parts  of  the  ice  were  formed  and 
met  at  right  angles. 

To  see  the  methods  of  freezing  and  remov- 
ing the  blocks  of  artificial  ice  from  the  cans, 
and  the  devices  for  handling  them,  is  well 
worth  a  visit  to  one  of  the  artificial-ice  manu- 
factories. 


CHAPTER  XVII. 

THE   LAST  WORD. 

WE  have  seen  in  our  hurried  glances  at 
water  and  its  use  by  man,  that  good 
old  Mother  Nature  has  made  ample  provision 
for  us,  and  that  we  need  have  little  to  fear  from 
bad  water,  either  in  town  or  country,  if  only 
we  ,pay  due  regard  to  her  teachings,  and  look 
to  it  that  our  surroundings  are  kept  clean. 

Vast  hordes  of  tiny  toilers  at  her  behest  are 
working  in  our  service  day  and  night  to  keep 
the  world  wholesome,  and  all  the  races  of 
beings  supplied  with  life-stuff. 

We  have  found  an  invisible  flora  in  the 
water,  and  have  learned  that  for  the  most  part 
it  bodes  no  ill  to  man.  We  have  learned  that 
we  can  nurse  back  to  life  the  delicate  organisms 
which  were  sporting  in  the  water  when  it  fell 
under  the  spell  of  Winter's  wand,  and  wring 

138 


DRINKING-WATER  AND  ICE   SUPPLIES.       139 

from  them,  one  by  one,  the  secret  of  their 
human  relationships. 

It  is  certain  that  the  wholesale  curtailment 
of  many  forms  of  disease  may  be  brought 
about  by  rigid  attention  to  some  of  the  simplest 
details  of  sanitation. 

It  has  become  plain  that  the  new  science  of 
bacteriology  has  done  much  to  make  this  pre- 
vention of  disease  possible.  It  is,  however, 
equally  plain  that  by  unceasing  and  intelligent 
vigilance  alone,  on  the  part  of  all,  can  we 
achieve  that  end. 

But  do  not  be  discouraged,  patient  reader, 
nor  let  the  burden  of  modern  cleanliness  rest 
too  heavily  in  your  consciousness.  The  obvi- 
ous necessities  in  this  direction  will  be  easily 
enough  met  when  their  fulfilment  becomes 
habitual. 

Our  leaf-clad  forefather  no  doubt  protested 
with  all  the  forcefulness  of  pristine  expletives, 
as,  day  by  day,  he  was  reminded  that  the  refuse 
of  the  little  housekeeping  must  be  deposited 
farther  and  farther  from  the  tent.  And  clear 
down  to  our  own  day  and  hour,  every  sugges- 
tion of  sanitary  reform  has  encountered  pro- 


140     DRINKING-WATER  AND  ICE   SUPPLIES. 

test,  and  its  promulgators  have  incurred  the 
odium  of  soul-disquieting  nuisances. 

The  standards  of  cleanly  living  rise,  because 
the  obstacles  become  greater,  and  the  aim 
higher*  and  more  comprehensive.  But  little  by 
little,  cleanliness  has  won  its  way  to  favor,  and 
man  has  always  been  the  better  for  it  in  the  end. 


INDEX. 


PACK 

Air,  ground    .  .  .  .  .  •  •  ••  .20 

"         "       activities  of      ........        21 

"         "       composition  of  ...•••.        21 

"    underground      .........        21 

Albany,  bacteria  in  Hudson  River  above  .  .  *  .  .        71 

"        pollution  of  water  supply  of         ......      102 

Ammonia,  in  water  .........        56 

"          use  of,  in  making  ice     .  .  .  .  •  .  .      135 

Artesian  wells  .  .  .  .  .  .  •  .  .  27, 35 

Artificial  ice  ..........      134 

Bacillus  typhosus      .........        91 

Bacteria  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  •        42 

11        active  agents  in  soil  and  artificial  filtration      .  .  .  .49 

"        average  numbers  of,  in  good  water        .....        73 

"        beneficent  nature  of,  in  filtration  .....        52 

"        data  for  judging  significance  of,  in  water         .  .  .  .  73. 74 

"        destruction  of,  in  filter-beds        ......        50 

"        disease-producing,  in  water        ......        91 

41        distribution  of,  in  water  .......        64 

"        experiments  on  action  of,  in  filtration  .....        48 

"•        harmlessness  of  many  forms  of  .  .  .  .  .  *        59 

u        in  ice  .  .  .  .  .  .  .          128,  130 

"  soil 43 

"         "  water 59,  71 

**         "      "      of  various  cities  ...  .  .  .  .  69, 72 

41        nitrifying    .........        53 

"        numbers  of,  in  food  and  drink  not  necessarily  of  significance  .        6t 

numbers  of,  in  water         .  .  .  .  .  .  .        69 

"        of  typhoid  fever,  characters  of  .  .  .  .  .  .92 

**        "        "          "       in  water          ......        91 

•»         "  water 63 

44        phosphorescent  in  water .......        63 

141 


142  INDEX. 


FAGB 

Bacteria,  rapid  multiplication  of,  in  water  .  .  .  .  .65 

"         relations  of  cleanliness  to  ......        61 

"  "        "  to  purification  of  water  by  the  soil          .  .  .45, 51 

"         significance  of  species  in  water  ......        67 

"         water,  effects  of  sunlight  on  .  .  .  .  .64 

harmlessness  of  most  forms  of  .  .  .  .  .65 

oxygen  haters       .......        64 

u       lovers       .......        64 

some  forms  of,  harmful  to  susceptible  persons  .  .        68 

"         ways  of  getting  into  water  of     .  .  .  .  .  .66 

Bacterial,  cannibals  .........        66 

*'          norm  in  good  water         .......        69 

"          slime,  role  of,  in  filtration         ......        50 

Berlin,  bacteria  in  drinking-water  of  .  .  .  .  .71 

Biological  analysis  of  water  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  69, 74 

Boulders,  origin  of    .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .17 

Brooklyn,  dangers  of  ice  supply  of  ......       130 

Census,  a  water         .........        69 

Cholera,  bacteria  of,  in  water  .......  91 

u         prevention  of  spread  of,  by  water          .....      102 

Clay-beds  as  depositories  of  water  .  .  .  .  .  .19 

Clay,  origin  of  .........        17 

Clouds  ..........        33 

Cremating  furnaces  as  sanitary  agents      .  .  .  .  .  .      103 

Croton  water,  bacteria  in  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .72 

"  "       pollution  of  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  104,  105 

Crust  of  the  earth,  formation  of  .  .  .  .  -  .  .  .  16,  17 

Disinfection  of  discharges  from  the  sick  as  preventive  of  water  dangers        .      xoa 

Earth,  development  of         ........          7 

"      double  surface  of      ........        19 

"       rock  and  soil  surfaces  of     .  .  .  .  .  .  .24 

"      the  living 38 

Filter-beds,  large 108 

Filters,  domestic       .........  "2 

Filtration,  artificial,  experiments  on          .  .  .  .  .  .41 ,48 

"                "         of  water         .......  108 

"         purifying  agencies  in           .           .           .           .           .  109 

"          bacterial  slime,  agency  of,  in  .           .           •           .           .  50 

"          intermittent        ........  5Z 

"          natural,  oxidation  in                 .           .           .           •           •           •  34 


INDEX.  143 


PAGB 

Filtration,  natural,  processes  involved  in  .....        40 

44          of  water,  artificial          .  •  *  .  .          41, 48, 108,  112 

"          '*      "       natural 33,34 

"          rapid         .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .      no 

Fire-mist        ..........         6 

Flora  of  water  .........        63 

Garbage,  disposal  of,  by  cremation  ......      103 

Gas,  illuminating,  in  soil     ........        21 

Geneva,  bacteria  in  water  supply  of          ......        71 

Germs  in  soil  .........        44 

44       u  water 59,69 

Gravel,  origin  of        .........        17 

Ground-air     .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  20, 21 

Ground-water  ........        22, 23, 30 

41      direction  of  flow  of,  important      .  .  .  .  .95 

"      illustration  of  .......  24-26 

"      qualities  of    .  .  .  .  .  .  .  35 

"  "      rate  of  flow  of 28 

"  "      relations  of,  to  wells  ..*...        93 

Hudson  River,  bacteria  in  water  of           ......  71 

44       ice,  dangers  of        .......  130 

"  "  gathering  of  .......  116 

Hueppe          ..........  87 

Ice       ...........      116 

44  artificial   ..........      134 

"       •"        bubbles  in 136 

'*         "         foolish  schemes  for  inciting  prejudice  against      .  .  .135 

44  bacteria  in  .........      128 

44  bleeding  of          .........      133 

11  bubbles  in  .........      119 

"  companies,  need  of  official  supervision  of      .  .  .  .  .      132 

44  cutting  and  housing  of  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .      125 

"  effects  of  snow-fall  on    .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .      122 

u  flora          .  .  . n8 

44  formation  of  natural      .  .  .  .  .  .  ,  .118 

44  harvesting,  on  Hudson  River  .  .  .  .  .  .  .116 

44  houses,  construction  of .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .117 

44  Hudson  River,  dangers  of.......      130 

44  living  beings  in.  ....•»..      128 

44  necessity  of  cutting,  from  pure  sources          .  .  .  .  .133 

44  packing  of ,  in  houses     ........      117 


144  INDEX. 


PACK 
Ice,  physical  structure  of    .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .      127 

snow        ..........       123 

**    supply  of,  in  New  York  and  Brooklyn          .....      130 

'*     typhoid-fever  germs  in  .......      130 

"     water,  benumbing  of  taste  by .  .  .  .  .  .  .      132 

Koch   .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  43, 91 

Life,  first  appearance  of,  on  the  earth       ......          9 

Life-stuff,  changes  in  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  n 

Living  things,  significance  of,  in  nature  ......          9 

Loam,  origin  and  nature  of  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  17,  19 

Massachusetts  Health  Board,  work  of,  on  disposal  of  sewage  .  *  .      103 

Memphis,  water  supply  of  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .28 

Miquel  ..........        70 

Mould,  nature  of       .........        19 

Moulds  in  soil  .........        44 

Nebula  ..........        10 

Nebulous  vapor         .........          6 

New  York,  bacteria  in  water  supply  of     .  .  .  .  .  .79 

dangers  of  Hudson  River  ice  supply  of  .  .  .      130 

ice  supply  of     ........      116 

"        "      pollution  of  water  supply  of  .  .  .  .  .  104,  105 

Nitrates  and  nitrites  in  water         .......        56 

Nitrification  ..........       40 

Nitrifying  bacteria    .........        53 

Organic,  impurities  in  water  .......  33 

"        matter  in  water,  nature  of  ......  39 

"       destruction  of,  in  soil  by  bacteria          .  .  .  •  45 

Oxidation  of  organic  matter  in  the  soil     ......  40 

Paris,  water  supply  of,  bacteria  in             ......  70 

Pebbles,  origin  of  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .17 

Philadelphia,  pollution  of  water  supply  of           .....  loa 

Political  tricksters  as  enemies  of  public  health    .....  62 

Potomac  River,  bacteria  in              .......  71 

Protest-conjectured  against  sanitary  preachments          ....  89 

Protozoa  in  water      .........  58 

Purification,  self-,  of  water             .......  75 

Rain-water     ..........        35 

Rhone,  bacteria  in  waters  of  .......        7* 


INDEX.  145 


Rivers,  increase  in  volume  of,  from  ground-water  .  .  •       .  .28 

Rock,  disintegration  of                      .            .            .  .  .  .  .17 

*'       formation  of   .            .            .            .            .  .  .  .  .  16,  17 

**       -ruins  .                        .            .            .            .  .  .  .  .  17,  18 

Sand,  origin  of  .........        17 

11       particles,  large  aggregate  surfaces  of,  in  soil         .  .  .  -39 

"       story  of  a  particle  of  .......         18 

Sanitary  management  of  cities,  danger  of  entrusting  to  political  tricksters    .         62 
Seine,  bacteria  in  waters  of  the      .......        70 

Sewage,  disposal  of  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .       103 

li        polluted  water,  cleansing  of,  by  bacteria  in  the  soil    .  .  .46 

Sewer  water,  large  number  of  bacterial  species  in  .  .  .74 

Smith,  water  analysis  by     .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .71 

Soil,  alteration  in  cleansing  powers  of,  by  heating          .  .  .  .41 

'*    bacteria  in  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  43, 66 

"          "        **  as  purifying  agencies       ......        45 

"     changes  in,  by  worms  and  plants       ......         38 

"    chemical  changes  of  water  in  the      ......        40 

**    origin  of  .........        17 

"     particles,  large  aggregate  surfaces  of  .....         39 

'     porous  nature  of  ........        20 

"    the,  as  a  supplier  and  remover  of  bacteria  from  water      .  .  .66 

Spontaneous  purification  of  water  .......        75 

Spree,  bacteria  in  water  of  the        .......        71 

Springs  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  ...  14, 78 

"       pollution  of  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .80 

Spring  water,  mode  of  judging  of  salubrity  of     .  .  .  .  .80 

Stones,  origin  of        .........        17 

Sunlight,  effects  of,  on  water  bacteria       ......        64 

Thuringian  forest,  legend  of            .......  2 

Tyndall           ..........  127 

Typhoid  bacillus,  characters  of  .  .  .  .  .  .92 

u        fever,  bacteria  in  water    .......  91 

"       conveyed  by  well-water   ......  99 

"      danger  of  conveyance  of,  by  ice  .....  130 

"       prevention  of  spread  of,  by  water           ....  102 

Underground  water  .........         22 

Washington,  bacteria  in  Potomac  River  at  .  .  .  .71 

Water,  action  of  oxygen  of,  in  porous  soil  .....        39 

"      aerial  . aj 


146  INDEX. 


PAGE 

Water,  algae  in  .  .  .  .  .  .  ...        59 

"       ammonia  in   .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  -56 

amount  of,  required  for  domestic  and  other  uses  .  .  .13 

44       and  bacterial  disease  .......       101 

44       animal  life  in  ........         58 

"       average  number  of  bacteria  in  good          .  .  .  .  -73 

bacteria,  disease- producing  forms  of,  in  .  .  .  .  .90 

distribution  of  .  .  .  .  .  .64 

harmlessness  of  most  forms  of  .  .  .  .  .65 

in 59163,69 

44         "of  various  cities  ......  69-72 

Water-bacteria  par  excellence        .......        66 

Water,  bacterial  analysis  of  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  69, 72 

44         norm  of  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  69, 73 

slime,  in  filtration  of  .  .  .  .  .50 

44       biological  analysis  of  .......  69-74 

"       boiling  of  polluted   ........      113 

"       changes  and  transmutations  of  .  .  .  .  .10 

44       changes  in  organic  matter  of,  in  soil         .  .  .  .  .40 

characters  of  good    ........        54 

44       chemical  analyses  of  .......        57 

4i          changes  of,  in  soil  .  .  .  .  .  .        39 

44       cistern  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  32, 35 

44       classification  of  sources  of  .  .  .  .  .  .  .14 

44       clearness  and  tastelessness  of,  no  criterion  of  purity     .  .  .99 

44       compulsory  prevention  of  pollution  of     .  .  .  .  .       ioa 

"       Croton,  bacteria  in  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .72 

44        need  of  prevention  of  pollution  of  ....       104 

data  for  judging  results  of  bacterial  analysis  of  ...  73,  74 

44       disease-producing  bacteria  in  .  .  .  .  .91 

44       early  formation  of    .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .7 

44       eggs  of  animal  parasites  in  ......        58 

44       examination,  biological,  of  ......        69 

chemical,  of  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  57, 75 

of,  by  experts  .  .  .  .  .  .114 

44       filtration,  artificial,  of          .......       108 

44          natural,  of  ......  -33 

44         "  human  interference  with  .  .  .33, 34 

44       flora  of  .........        63 

44       ground-          .........        22 

44        direction  of  flow  of  ......        30 

qualities  of  .......        35 

44  4l        rate  of  flow  of  .  .  .  .  .  •        28 


INDEX.  147 


PACK 

Water,  ground-  relation  of,  to  wells          .  .  .  .  .  .  94,  95 

14       hard 35.54 

44       how  obtained  in  primitive  life       .  .  .  .  .  .12 

"       impure,  chemical  grounds  of  condemnation  of   .  .  .  57 

44       impurities  of  ........        54 

14         atmospheric,  of  ......        32 

44         chemical,  of  '  .  .  .  .  56 

14          forms  of  .......        55 

44         gaseous,  of          .......        31 

living,  of 58 

44  "          organic,  of          .......       32 

44         vegetable,  of      ,  .  .•          .  .  .  •        59 

44       in  the  soil ai 

44       kinds  of 31 

44       mineral  substances  in          .......        55 

44       lake  and  pond,  qualities  of  ......        35 

44       nitrates  and  nitrites  in        .  .  .  .  .  .  .56 

44       organic  matter  in     .  .  .  .  .  .  .  -39 

44       pollutions  of  .......  56,  101 

41  "         44  by  human  habitations          .  .  .  .  .        36 

41         prevention  of      .  .  .  .  .  .     77,  103,  104 

44         spontaneous  disappearance  of  ....        75 

44       protozoa  in    .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .58 

"       purification,  artificial  .  .  .  .  .  .48,  101,  108 

of,  by  freezing  ......       127 

44   natural  filtration        .  .  .  .  .34 

'*    4i   oxidation  in  soil         .  .  .  .  .40 

4    "  by  precipitation         .....      no 

U   insoil 33,  39*45,47 

rain-  •  •  •  • 35 

44       removal  of  organic  matter  from,  in  soil   .....        39 

*'  «ver-  35 

44       self-purification  of  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .75 

44       sewage  pollution  of  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  56, 67 

44       significance  of  bacterial  species  in  ....        69 

"  soft 35 

solid   ..........      116 

44       sources,  relation  of,  to  settlements  .....        12 

44  spontaneous  purification  of  ......  75 

substances  in,  symptomatic  of  pollution  .  .  .  .        56 

44       supplies  and  politics  .......      in 

**       surface,  qualities  of  .......        35 

44  the  earth's  stock  of  to 


148 


INDEX. 


Water,  turbidity  of,  from  clay        .  . 

"       ways  in  which  bacteria  get  into     . 
**       well,  bacteria  in  . 

Well,  a  model  .... 

Well-curbs,  danger  of  open  .  . 

Well-water,  bacteria  in 

u  effects  of  draining  on  bacteria  in 

44  qualities  of 

Wells,  artesian  .... 

as  simple  ground-water  cisterns     . 
44      common  shallow 

constancy  of  water  supply  from     . 

driven  .... 

44      general  insalubrity  of,  in  towns      . 

pollution  of    .  .  .  . 

41          "  diatribe  against 

44      suggestions  for  construction  and  care  of 
4t      systems  of  driven 
14      use  of,  as  refrigerators 
World- matter  .... 

Worms,  changes  in  soil  by  .  .  . 


Yeasts  in  soil 


PACK 
36 
66 
72 
88 
86 
72 
73 
84 

27,35 
95 
81 
93 
82 
98 


THE  END. 


EMERGENCIES :  How  TO  AVOID  THEM  AND 
HOW  TO  MEET  THEM.  Compiled  by  BURT  G.  WIL- 
DER, M.D.,  Professor  of  Physiology,  Cornell  Uni- 
versity. Paper 15  cts. 

A  SELECTION  FROM  THE  CONTENTS. 
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Kerosene  Burns  and  Scalds ;  Lightning  ;  Sunstroke  ;  Broken 
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gives  the  remedies  for  poisons,  and  the  treatment  in  a  great 
variety  of  accidents."— Chicago  Inter-Ocean. 

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*'  It  is  a  convenient  little  pamphlet,  full  of  wise  cautions 
and  excellent  advice." — Cincinnati  Journal  &  Messenger. 

G.  P.  PUTNAM'S  SONS,  NEW  YORK. 


HEALTH  NOTES  FOR  STUDENTS.   By 

BURT  G.  WILDER,  M.D.,  Professor  of  Physiology, 
Cornell  University  and  the  Medical  School  of  Maine. 
Paper 20  cts 


A  SELECTION  FROM  THE  CONTENTS. 
Maxims  and  General  Remarks  ;  Choice  of  Room  ;  Drainage  ; 
Food  and  Drink;  Ventilation  and  Heating  ;  Clothing  ;  Bathing; 
Care  of  the  Hands,  etc. ;  Sleep— Its  Importance  to  Students  ; 
Exercise  ;  Methods  of  Study :  Care  of  the  Eyes  ;  Stimulants 
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*'  Many  thanks  for  the  '  Health  Notes '  which  ought  to  be  very 
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in  great  need  of  such  advice,  at  all  times,  and  everywhere." — 
OLIVER  WENDELL  HOLMES,  Nov.  8.  1883. 

G.  P.  PUTNAM'S  SONS,  NEW  YORK, 


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